Garden Talk

This beautiful Iris (Top) was blooming in my garden on June 1st. It was an overcast day, and I've always heard that flowers are best captured on "film" when it's not overly sunny out as the pollen on them creates a dulling effect with the colors of the flower. So I switched my camera to macro function, got in close and captured this image. I didn't even notice the water droplet caught in the anthers (I think that's what they're called) until afterwards, when I put it on the computer screen.


I also used the macro function to capture the last of my lilacs in bloom. They're a very pale lilac color, and when I put them up onscreen, a lot of the color didn't show up at all, so I opened the best photo up in Photoshop, added some sharpening, color tweaking and cropped the picture to get at the part I liked best.

I also tried to get a good shot of the last of my columbine in bloom. (Below) This is shot from above it because I think it has such an unusual, interesting shape as a flower. The colors are really intense, too. (But it's not a wonderful picture or anything. . .)
I've been working hard at weeding my garden this year, and have the best intentions to keep it up because it's looking so great, but most years, I do well until it gets really hot, and then the weeds start crowding in!
I have this grand plan to get up as early as I normally do during the school year three times a week this summer and weed, but check back in July and see if I've done it! To be continued. . .

Other stuff I've been doing recently. . .

Over the past week I've been taking other photos, of course. The image to the left is an infrared view of the Fort Williams abandoned castle. It looked much more interesting in IR than it did in color. You get such stark blacks and whites, almost like silver gelatin photography, to my untutored eye!














Above, you'll see a photo of the Catholic church, Sacred Heart, I attended on and off through my childhood. My great-grandfather, Thomas Joyce, helped to finish it. He and his 2 sons (my great-uncles,) Thomas and Henry Joyce, did all the fine plasterwork from the columns to the fancy work in the dome. I wish I knew more about how they did it, because there aren't many people alive who can do work like that anymore. Unfortunately, the church is rapidly falling into disrepair because there isn't enough money to stop the towers on top of the church from leaking, so lot of the plaster in the back of the church is bubbling and peeling off. I'm glad I went in last week and got the pictures I did. If you click on my link for Photobucket, you can hear the organist, Rocco, playing the incredible organ for a few seconds, too. The organ, pictured below, was donated by a former governor of Maine, Phineas T. Baxter, in the 1920s.

A morning with Maya

Maya and I woke up this morning to beautiful, bright sunlight streaming through the skylight. I was excited to play with my Hoya R-72 Infrared filter again, so after a breakfast of waffles and tea, Maya and I headed out to Stroudwater Falls and Evergreen Cemetery. Maya used the old Canon A-510 and had a blast taking all kinds of pictures. This first picture is an Infrared view of us before we struck out on our trek through the cemetery. The first picture below is a particularly clear one Maya snapped of one of the graves.

Below is an infrared picture of Stroudwater Falls from this morning that I like.