All posts tagged: Floral Photography

First Poppy of the Year

March 28, 2020
by Michael Scandling
comments 29
California / California Poppy / Floral Photography / Flower / Impressionism / Inspiration / Nature / Photo Log / Photography / Poppy

February 20, 2020 — Los Gatos Creek Trail, California A floral palindrome. Mother Nature is very accommodating in giving me a place to start. (Nikon D850, AF-S VR Micro Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED. RAW processing in DxO PhotoLab 3.2; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.) More fine-art photography at www.amagaphoto.com

Georgia’s Back (Or Someone Like Her)

May 7, 2019
by Michael Scandling
comments 33
California / Flower / Inspiration / Photo Log / Photography / Tulip

May 4, 2019. Crystal Hermitage Gardens, outside of Nevada City, California. When we went to visit our friends in the Sierra foothills, we were prepared for some landscapes. Alas, the sky was blue. From horizon to horizon it was utterly devoid of texture. Not the best for landscapes. But little did we know that our friends had something else in mind anyway. Two weeks ago, they were exploring Highway 49 and stopped in Nevada City. […]

Day Three — Poppy Paradise

April 19, 2019
by Michael Scandling
comments 45
California / California Poppy / Floral Photography / Flower / Landscape / Nature / Photo Log / Photography

And on the third day, The Land of Oz. Or was it The Sound of Music? In the southwest corner of the Mojave Desert is a hill that for about a month every spring turns retina-burning orange. The Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve and the surrounding countryside. No wizard. No Julie Andrews. But lots of poppies. Other wildflowers, too. But mostly poppies. (And thirty mile-per-hour winds, so no florascapes.) And an occasional cloud. (Nikon D500, […]

Georgia on My Mind

April 6, 2019
by Michael Scandling
comments 36
Abstract / Floral Photography / Impressionism / Inspiration / Photography / Tulip

I don’t recall when I first saw Georgia O’Keeffe’s work. It just seems like she was always there. She decided to be an artist when she was ten, and then for almost nine decades she kept herself and her art intensely alive through constant evolution — but she was always unmistakably herself and her art was always unmistakably her own. I don’t know if Ms. O’Keeffe ever visited the amazing and seemingly endless gardens at […]

Concentrated Essence of Poppy

March 29, 2019
by Michael Scandling
comments 30
California / California Poppy / Floral Photography / Flower / Nature / Photography

For an all-too-brief period in the spring, California poppies proliferate. They’re just starting to appear here in the Bay Area. In a few weeks — maybe just a few days — there will be more patches, fields, entire hillsides of intense golden blooms shimmering in the breeze. There will be more in this space too. Here’s a preview of this year’s bounty. (Nikon D850; AF-S VR Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED. RAW processing in DxO PhotoLab […]

What Trader Joe’s Taught Me About a Plum Blossom Photo

March 3, 2019
by Michael Scandling
comments 26
Floral Photography / Inspiration / Photography

February 2019. My back yard and my computer. Every year there are plum blossoms in my yard. Every year — in homage to Japanese art — I photograph them, searching for The One. Over the past few weeks, many gigabytes died on this search. This blossom? That one? One blossom? Many? High-key? Low-key? Simple background? Mottled background? High contrast? Low contrast? Saturated? Muted? On and on and on and on. . . Images fell like […]