The Flower Hour – First Camellia

The first camellia of the season bloomed a few days after Christmas. There are several camellia bushes in my garden that are covered with buds that will soon be opening.

Many thanks to Terri for this week’s Flower Hour challenge The Flower Hour: Yellow Trumpet Flower

Terri posts a new Flower Hour Weekly challenge every Tuesday. You can find out more about this challenge here.

Lens Artists Photo Challenge #285 – Warm Colors

Egidio’s challenge is to feature warm colors. Warm colors include red, orange and yellow and can also include related hues of those colors.

I chose images of flowers in warm colors to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day.

Many thanks to our host Egidio for the challenge Lens-Artists #285 – Warm colors

Wandering Dawgs will be taking a short blogging break while we go wandering..

Lens Artists Photo Challenge #273 – Symmetry

Sofia has challenged us to feature images that show symmetry. She tells us that symmetry in photography “creates strong and balanced images” and that “our eyes find symmetry harmonious and pleasing.”

My first two images are examples of radial symmetry I found in hot air balloons as they were being inflated at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

The next images are examples of symmetry in architecture.

My last image is symmetry found in nature in my first Camellia bloom of the season.

Many thanks to our host Sophia for the challenge Lens-Artists Challenge #273 – Symmetry

Lens Artists Photo Challenge # 224 – Exposure

In this challenge Sofia asks us to work on exposure. We can use our camera’s shutter speed or play with the aperture settings when we are shooting. Another way to work with exposure is to change the exposure when editing.

This is a great challenge for me because I tend to be on the lazy side and let my camera do the work using the automatic feature. This method is great when I’m shooting wildlife that moves and I don’t have time to change settings quickly. Often, when taking photos of other subjects I’m not happy with the results if I let the camera do the work.

The two images below were taken just minutes apart. I used the camera’s automatic settings for the first image. I used the manual settings to change the shutter speed to 1/20 to achieve the overexposed look for the second image.

In the images below I played with different settings to capture the first camellia of the season. For the first image I set the aperture to a low 4.6. I set the shutter speed to 1/4000 for the second image.

Many thanks for Sofia’s Lens-Artists Challenge #224 – Exposure