digital photography: techniques: thoughts: photographs
Yesterday I built a small spiral in our garden below a specimen Japanese maple tree. I constructed the spiral using small rocks as the border for an aggregation of miniature…
Yesterday I decided that my Serpentine Sunflower (Helianthus bolanderi) was getting a bit "long in the tooth" (insert favorite joke about serpents and teeth here). Indoors, I deconstructed the sunflower…
To make these images, I turned the center column of my tripod upside down. Safely getting my camera into the now-upside-down ARCA-style clamp took a measure of care and dexterity.…
Noted photographer and botanical artist Harold Davis shares a visit with his garden. This is the garden that he uses as source material for many of his light box images…
For this black and white image made with my Leica Monochrom M11 I experimented with different color filters. The basic setup was photographing with the camera on a tripod straight…
Heading home from Japan in a long day of travel, I’ve had a chance to glance through some of the many photos I’ve made on this trip. What’s different this…
It will likely come as no surprise to my friends and those who follow me that this trip to Japan I am very observant of stone works: paths, walls, and…
Engetsukyu (Moon Bridge) in Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens in central Tokyo is said to have been designed by Zhu Shun Shui, a Chinese Confucian scholar of the 1600s. It’s called “Engetsukyu…
I am traveling in Japan through the end of the month, and by the time I get back most of the poppies in my garden will have bloomed and faded.…
MS-Optics is the company belonging to Sadayasu Miyazaki. Miyazaki-san, now an octogenarian, worked out of small office near Tokyo, and for a "retirement job" hand-assembled (and individually numbered) lens in…
Heading to an appointment in San Francisco, Phyllis asked me whether I was bringing a camera. I hadn't been planning to, as I often find it distracting to try to…
In specifying Bamboo for our garden for our garden I learned a great deal about this marvelous plant. There are over 1,200 species of Bamboo. They grow by sending up…
The poppies I planted in my garden in the autumn are blooming wonderfully. I've been enjoying photographing them, this year focusing on the core of the flower. The first image…
I'll be presenting Photographing Flowers for Transparency on Saturday July 26, 2025 to the Royal Photographic Society via Zoom. The live event is open to the public with a small fee, although…
It's my enchanted, secret garden. I've been having a great deal of fun planning, planting, and enjoying our new garden in what was formerly a waste-land of a backyard. Here…
Chicken egg. Chicken egg. Egg chicken. Egg chicken. I am often asked which came first, the gardening or the flower photography. I think the answer is neither: it started for…
My garden is in full bloom, and the new enchanted garden is exciting. The whole ensemble is so peaceful and serene that it is a little hard to motivate myself…
We're making serious progress on our backyard garden project. The demolition stage is completely finished. The "hardscaping" is mostly done, and the rock "fountain" installed and working (the rocks around…