Posted in Flowers, Gardening, iris, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, iris, Runnymeade, Tamron 180mm on May 7, 2022| 3 Comments »
It is prime time for the bearded irises in the garden of my dear friend and fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. There are several dozen irises in bloom now in multiple colors, including these beauties, and it looks like even more flowers will be blooming soon.
Beauty is everywhere.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, studio photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm macro, Cindy's garden, irises, Runnymeade on April 27, 2022| 19 Comments »
It is now the season for irises. All kinds of irises are starting to pop open in the garden of my dear friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. We are neighbors in a townhouse community in Northern Virginia, which means there is relatively little space for gardening, but Cindy manages to pack an amazing amount of flower power into her limited area. Fortunately, she and her husband, who is also a Michael, live in an end-unit, so they have a bit more space than the interior units.
Cindy likes to select flowers to grow that she knows will be photogenic and love to pore over the flower catalogues on line. Our challenge is to figure out how to capture the beauty of these carefully selected flowers in the crowed garden. One of Cindy’s techniques is to use a small artificial background to help to isolate the flower. Often she uses a white foam core board to which she has attached a piece of black velvet-like material. She can then create studio-like images with a black or white background, depending on the flower.
This technique requires two people, because it is almost impossible to hold the background in place and frame a shot at the same time. I took these iris photos yesterday while Cindy held the background in place for me and then we reversed positions. In some of the images it looks like I was using some kind of studio lighting, but it was all natural night on a somewhat cloudy day that diffused the light nicely.
You don’t really need any special equipment to create this effect—you could use almost anything for a background. The day before, our improvised background was a collapsible black storage cube from IKEA that Cindy had just given me. The final photo, taken by Cindy with her iPhone, shows me holding that black cube and gives you a sense of the garden environment and how the technique is used.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Landscape, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, bearded irises, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Runnymeade on May 11, 2021| 24 Comments »
More bearded irises? Yes, I decided to do another posting on the colorful bearded irises in the garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. We are probably near the peak period right now and there is a wide variety of irises in bloom. There is only a stem or two of some of the irises that I photographed, each with several blooms, but there is also one patch, shown in the final photo, where there are at least several dozen irises of the same type concentrated in one area.
One of the challenges of photographing these irises is that the background tends to get very cluttered. I have tried to blur the background by choosing my angle of view and camera settings, and the results are ok.
Cindy has come up with a more elegant solution—she photographs them in situ against a black velvet-like background, which requires the assistance of another person to hold the background in place. Usually her husband Michael is drafted, but yesterday in the late afternoon I was an emergency fill-in when the late day light spontaneously prompted her to photograph the irises that were blooming outside of her yard around an electrical junction box. The final photo is one that Cindy took with her iPhone of me in “action.”
What kind of results do you get with this process? Check out Cindy’s blog postings Bearded iris blooming in my garden and Bearded iris (taken last year) to see some samples of the stunning studio-like portraits of these flowers that Cindy has taken.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, bearded irises, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Runnymeade on May 3, 2021| 13 Comments »
Although I don’t have my own garden, I am blessed to have a neighbor and friend, Cindy Dyer, who loves to plant photogenic flowers, like these beautiful bearded irises that are now in bloom. Cindy is a self-employed photographer and graphic designer who I consider to be my photography mentor and muse. She and her husband Michael make up the rest of my “pod” that has helped to sustain me through this past pandemic year.
What else does Cindy do? Here is a little extract from the “Stuff About Me” page of her blog.
“Oil and acrylic painting, photography (portraits, glamour shots, nature, macro, floral/botanical, travel), cement leaf casting, crocheting hats like crazy come winter time (what else can a gardener do when it’s cold out?), needle felting, sewing, murals, faux painting, Polaroid transfers (if it’s something crafty, I’ve probably at least tried it once), biblioholic (any topic, you name it—we probably have at least one book on the subject…don’t even begin to guess how many gardening books I’ve amassed!), animal lover—currently three cats…”
You can get a look at some of Cindy’s photography and writing on her blog at cindydyer.wordpress.com. If you want a real treat, though, you should check out the slide show of her portfolio at cindydyer.zenfolio.com, where your eyes will be delighted as you see an amazing series of stunning images.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, black background, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, iris, outdoor studio on May 16, 2020| 18 Comments »
A week ago I did a posting called Studio-like irises that featured photos of bearded irises shot against a background of a white foamcore board. This week on Thursday my photography mentor Cindy Dyer and I photographed some more of the irises in her garden, this time against a black background. Cindy had obtained some black velvet-like material with an adhesive backing that she affixed to the back of the white foamcore board. Normally this material is used for jewelry displays, but it worked perfectly to highlight the forms and colors of these beautiful flowers.
Here are a few selected shots from our little photoshoot. Although we had a consistent background, we were moving in and out of the sunlight and shadows and I had to constantly change mycamera settings—we even had a few raindrops fall on us while we were taking photos. Cindy and her husband have three cats and when I opened up my images in Photoshop I learned that velvet serves as a magnet for cat hair.
If you like the look of these shots, you should check out the posting that Cindy did on her blog that features seven fabulous photos, including several colorful iris species not shown below.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, Bewilderbeast, Bewilderbeast iris, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, iris, Runnymeade on May 10, 2020| 27 Comments »
Although I have grown to know most of the irises in the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer, I don’t know their individual names. One iris that recently started blooming is so unusual and outrageous in appearance that I suspected that it was a special hybrid. I was bemused to learn that it is called the ‘Bewilderbeast’ bearded iris.
I love the way that Claire Austin described this striking hybrid iris on the Heritage Irises website, “This flower is a psychedelic mixture of colours, including maroon, mauve, and cream. These colours sit in rivers across the white background. The standards are muted in tone, and the thin beards are dark yellow.”
I tried photographing the iris with a natural background, which I prefer, and also with a piece of foamcore board. Do you prefer one image over the other?
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, iris, Runnymeade on May 7, 2020| 26 Comments »
You do not need to be in a studio to get a studio portrait look—all you need to do is to hold a piece of white cardboard or foamcore board behind the blooming flowers, such as these beautiful bearded irises in the garden of my friend Cindy Dyer. Cindy was gracious enough to hold the board for me and I returned the favor a few minutes later. Several viewers on my Facebook page commented that the style of these shots reminded them of botanical prints.
One of the challenges of shooting outdoors for shots like this was trying to get even lighting. I tweaked my settings in post-processing a bit to make the background as white as I dared, but did not go to the trouble of making the flowers perfect and removing any slight shadows or color casts from the background.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Bearded Iris, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Harmonia axyridis, iris, ladybird, ladybug, Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle on May 4, 2020| 14 Comments »
Yesterday my friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer and I were photographing flowers in different parts of her garden when she excitedly called out to me that she had spotted a ladybug inside one of the irises. I rushed over and spotted a tiny Multi-colored Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis) feverishly crawling around inside of a beautiful yellow bearded iris.
I had a mental picture of composing an image in which the viewer would looking from the outside into the interior of the flower. That meant that I could not get too close to the ladybug. It also meant that the ladybug had to cooperate by crawling into the right part of the frame. I watched and waited and eventually was able to capture the kind of artsy image that I had imagined.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, iris, Runnymeade on May 3, 2020| 9 Comments »
A short while ago I did a posting of iris buds that offered a preview of coming attractions. Today I wanted to give you a quick look at some of the attractions that have already arrived. I like the yellow bearded irises that have started blooming in numbers, but I have to admit that I have really fallen in love with the violet one that is shown in the first photo below. It is the only one of its color that has opened so far, but there are several dozen more that should be appearing in the next week or two. I can hardly wait.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, Uncategorized, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, dwarf bearded iris, iris, Love Bites, Runnymeade, Tamron 180mm on April 30, 2020| 10 Comments »
This beautiful dwarf bearded iris was almost hidden by the weeds and the undergrowth when I first discovered it early in April. Cindy, my neighbor in whose garden I have been taking flower photos this spring, recalls planting it a couple of years ago, but was a little surprised when I alerted her to it—she does nor remember seeing it bloom last year. The iris never grew very tall and was repeatedly been beaten down by the rain, but it was still strikingly beautiful.
There are so many different irises that specific cultivars are hard to identify. I looked through a lot of photos on-line, though, and think that I have identified it as a variety called “Love Bites.” Stout Gardens at Dancingtree described its characteristics in these words, “Rosy red standards over rich, dark carmine red falls with lavender beards” and added “Velvety carmine red falls with big lavender beards make this one a standout.”
I am curious about the name of the iris, because in my mind it can be interpreted in at least two different ways. Perhaps it refers to romantic little nibbles between lovers. Maybe, though, it is a bitter commentary on love, an homage to the song by the same name by Def Leppard that ends with the words, “If you’ve got love in your sights, watch out, love bites. Yes it does, it will be hell.”
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, anticipation, Bearded Iris, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm macro, Cindy Dyer, iris, iris bud, patience, Runnymeade on April 26, 2020| 22 Comments »
How much longer must I wait? That question has become a familiar refrain for most of us as our days of isolation and quarantine drag on endlessly. Sometimes it seems like time is standing still, yet there are hopeful signs that things are slowly improving.
I visit the garden of my neighbor, fellow photographer Cindy Dyer, almost every day, checking to see what has changed. Over the last month I have observed the growth of the leaves and stalks of a new crop of irises. A few of them have flowered and withered, but most of them are still buds, offering only a hint of their beauty that is yet to come.
Here are a few images that I captured on Thursday of iris buds of different shapes and colors, a preview of coming attractions.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm macro, Cindy Dyer, iris, Runnymeade, yellow iris on April 21, 2020| 10 Comments »
Most of the irises in the garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer have not yet bloomed, but this one beautiful yellow bearded iris decided to jump ahead of the others. Most of the iris buds are on stems several feet high, but this blossom is only a few inches off of the ground—perhaps that is why it was an early bloomer.
If you look closely at the two shots, you will immediately notice that I took them on separate days. The light was quite different on each those days and there were raindrops present on the petals when I took the second shot. Additionally, I chose a very different shooting angle for each image and processed them to emphasize different aspects of the photo. I have a slight preference for the overall feel of the first shot, but love the raindrops in the second shot—I think the pair of images work well together in tandem.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon Rebel XT, garden on May 7, 2013| 5 Comments »
In my neighbors’ garden facing the street, a beautiful purple bearded iris has a position of prominence, but unseen by most, a more modest, but equally beautiful purple flower grows amidst the vines in a corner of the back yard.
This iris is a showy flower, with deep, rich colors, frilly petals, and the colorful accent of the beard. How can you not like such a flower? It is the first iris to bloom and doesn’t have to share its glory.
Yet I am just as attracted to the geometric simplicity of the little purple flower in the back yard. The owner, Cindy Dyer, who posts amazing flower photos on her blog, told me the name of the flower (or perhaps it is considered a weed), but it didn’t stick in my memory.
Spring offers such a bounty of flowers, that there are bound to be some that appeal to your tastes and moods and sensitivities—it is definitely worth slowing down to smell the roses (and taking in the beauty of the other flowers too).
Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 