The Quiet Picture

Take 1

When I set out northbound, I saw some very dark clouds ahead of me. Otherwise it was sunny, so I figured it was just showers and drove on. I ignored the rain, but when the hail started pounding the windshield, I turned back.

But I was right, it was just a shower. I waited it out at home, decided to dress for rainy weather anyway and set out again.

Take 2

Same road, same direction. When I got there, the raining had already stopped and now it was blue skies all around. The lovely overcast weather had been replaced by a harsh noon light… I worked around it by playing with shadows and light. The bog rosemary was blooming at its best so the timing was right in that sense anyway. When I was almost done with my session, I heard the thunder in the distance. Very dark clouds in the north. I headed home to wait it pass.

I didn’t need the rainy weather clothes though. Even if the day is on the cool side, the sun is very very warm and you don’t want to be wearing rain gear…

Take 3

The thunder storm never made it all the way to Loos but the rain did. And hail. Once the sky started clearing, I set out again, but in a different direction this time. Last week the butterfly orchids had looked like they would be blooming this weekend, but they didn’t. The cold weather had effectively frozen them, I didn’t see any difference to last week’s status.

So I thought maybe the early marsh orchids then. They were already blooming last weekend, so that would be one in the bag. I was trying to find photogenic individuals – no problem with finding individuals, but the photogenic aspect was too much to ask. All early marsh orchids in this location were very small and setting them clear from the grasses would’ve been impossible so I didn’t even try.

I also had a look at the twayblade. No progress from last Sunday.

I gave up.

Take 4

I drove home and when I parked the car, I noticed that the pansies that had mysteriously appeared next to my garage were still blooming and the colours were incredible. I normally don’t photograph garden plants but these pansies were runaways, there’s no way anyone would’ve planted them here. So I focused as close the 150mm macro allowed me, and still had to do some cropping to fill the frame… but I got what I was after. I’ve always wanted to try this with violets, but the wild ones are too small. Pansies however, big enough to pull this off without using extension tubes.

Come to think of it, I might as well have stayed home all day. I can see the pansies from my living room window…

Today is the national park day so I headed to the Hamra NP. I was hoping to find out more about the park but very early on in the guided walk it transpired that it was going to take a lot longer than I had patience for. I took the first opportunity to get ahead of the group and did the rest of the walk guiding myself while cursing at the light which was never quite right. Too much, too little or too diffused. Then I came across a view which certainly had potential, but just as I was setting up the tripod the sun disappeared behind clouds. So I waited. And waited. And waited. After over half an hour of waiting I decided that the view wasn’t that good anyway and left. So I do have patience after all, about half an hour’s worth to be exact.

Back at home I was wondering what to do. I was still bummed out about the morning, but then I saw that it was completely overcast again so I thought of the cowslip I tried to photograph yesterday (without much success) and I needed overcast weather for it. So I packed the gear again and hiked to the cowslip and set up my tripod just as the sun came out. I just can’t catch a break today?! Looking at the sky, I realised that the clouds had quite simply evaporated and I could forget about my overcast conditions. I decided that the pictures just weren’t happening today so I headed to Hembygdsgården for a cup of coffee instead. Feeling better just for sitting in the sun, I figured that the day wasn’t so bad after all.

The lily of the valley grows in carpet style abundance at the Hembygdsgården, so I wanted to check them out while I was there. It turned out that they hadn’t started to bloom yet, but the beautiful blue of the common dog violets was shining at its best. I don’t have any particularly good violet pictures, I don’t know why I’ve always found them so difficult to photograph… so imagine my surprise when I saw this lonely flower just begging to be photographed. And the light was right, at last!

My spirits thus uplifted, I headed home. When I was walking past a small park area, I noticed something yellow sticking out from the grass. A closer look – yes indeed it’s a cowslip. And not just any cowslip, but one with an orange tinge. I hardly ever see those! This time it didn’t matter what kind of light I was given, both sunlight and shade worked fine.

On the way home I kept thinking how the day had turned from a complete waste of time to a perfect day out. And it wasn’t over yet – I remembered the grape hyacinths on my neighbour’s lawn so I got down to get them also. Shaded works better for them but I had one sunlight idea, except by now… a bank of clouds had drifted in again. I waited for a couple of minutes and then decided that grape hyacinths are not my thing anyway. It didn’t matter – the violet and cowslip pictures had made my day already!

Now that I have vacation, I want to have something to show for it – at least one picture per day. Now that’s quite a challenge for my photographic tunnel vision, I always struggle when I’m outside my narrow comfort zone. With what the snow wreaking havoc on the scenery and temporarily halting the progress of spring, I don’t have many of my customary motifs available to me. But, you should never underestimate Mother Nature – I had a look around today and the flowers are bouncing back as if the snow never happened at all. The lily of the valleys that I thought were goners for sure now look like they will bloom within the week, and the common dog-violets that were literally snowed under on Saturday now decorate the forest floor with their blue flowers. I found a cowslip that should be in full bloom in a couple of days… so getting that one picture per day might not be as hard as I thought on Saturday!

Amazing. I have waited and waited… and now it’s finally here. The flower season. In the past weeks I’ve gotten in the occasional flower shot, but the floodgates really opened today. I’ve been walking around with camera in hand most of the day, and finished with a car ride to the lake and got my first landscape shot since the winter. In floral terms, I’ve shot marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), dwarf marsh violet (Viola epipsila), wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella), wood forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica), wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa), apple flower, wild pansy (Viola tricolor) and then a yellow flower I haven’t been able to ID yet (help appreciated, see below). And I also got shots of a daffodil but I deleted them, and a backlit maple leaf which I didn’t delete, bringing the total of today’s species to ten. If this doesn’t look like summer, then I don’t know what!

I had this idea for wood anemone to shoot straight from above and frame the flower in the middle, with the leaves forming an OOF triangle in the BG. I tried it last week but unfortunately I only shot the flower in sunlight and found afterwards that the shadows from the upcurved petals spoiled the image. But luckily, the wood anemone were still blooming so I had another chance and made sure to get a shaded image to even out the exposure. In this image, I’ve used the vignetting tool in Lightroom to darken the corners (the top left corner was bothering me a little) and I’m quite happy about the result – couldn’t really get much closer to my pre-visualisation.

This is my mystery flower. It was growing right next to marsh marigold on the shore of a small pond, which is a sort of extension of the abandoned garden I blogged about a while ago. It has big leaves, reminded me of coltsfoot leaves, almost round with slightly serrated edges. I have a picture of the leaves and the full flower if needed.

Oh what to do tomorrow. I know a spot where the lily of the valley have already started blooming (!) and common and heath dog violets are forming blue pillows on the forest floor. There are cowslip on every lawn (except mine) but I have a secured a visit to someone’s garden to shoot them, only it will take a few days until they are fully grown. I really fancy taking a shot at marsh violets, which will be tricky because they are so small and just disappear in the grass while achieving sufficient DOF is a challenge of its own. And that unidentified flower will get some morning sun… and I want to perfect my backlit maple leaf shot… and I definitely need some good pictures of the forget-me-nots. Looks like another busy day tomorrow!