These irises are in my neighbor's yard. Not the same neighbor as a few days ago, but another neighbor. I've taken pics of his irises along the fence at the front of his property for years now. They are so beautiful! I had quite a few shots that I like from the cloudy photo shoot I had with them yesterday.
I'm not taking flower shots with water drops on them on purpose, it's just working out that way this spring. We keep having showers...
Here there's red in the background from the azaleas behind them.
In other happenings, Madi got a new pink Razor scooter yesterday, and I had the kids over to Crowder park to test them out. Joey red, Johnny blue, and Madi pink:-)
I decided to share another iris shot with you today. I added a texture using OnOne's PhotoFrame and a museum matte using Picasa 3. I like the matted version for posting online, but if I were going to print this picture, I'd print the unmatted version.
Donnie and I worked in my yard yesterday to take down some large tree branches. My DirecTV signal was breaking up since the leaves came out on the trees. We were also hoping to be able to try to get an upgrade to HD again too. Donnie used a tree branch saw similar to this one that he got out of my dad's garage, and after using it, we definitely recommend it. Donnie took down a 30' high and 10" diameter limb with it about 15 minutes. I gave the man a break and did not take any pics of the work yesterday although now I wish I'd taken at least a few. Branches all over the driveway, Donnie using the saw, Johnny trying to help drag branches to the back of the yard, and a cleaned up view to name a few. I really appreciated Donnie's help.
On another topic, we've been getting a lot of thunderstorms lately. Normally Blaze sleeps on the floor in the boys room, but when storms rumble, she seeks safety in one of their beds. At 12 it's not easy for her to get in the bed, so she's really motivated on the nights she gets up there.
The boys and I took a drive after dinner last night. Baseball practice for Johnny was cancelled due to rain, but we wanted to get out for a few minutes anyway. I spotted these gorgeous irises growing along the sidewalk at The Garden Hut, and just had to stop and take some pics. There was a pause in the rain when I started, but as I shot, the rain picked up, and there are a few shots where you can see a few raindrops.
I almost cannot believe that I am posting a B&W flower shot. So not the typical me. Yet I was inspired to try this shot in B&W and then totally grabbed by it once I did, so here you have it!
I was out riding my bike and saw these lovely bearded iris in my neighbor's yard. I couldn't help but come back and take a few pics. The homeowner came out, and we chatted a bit. I have permission to come back and some tips on other lovely flowers to look for over the next few months.
After a doctor's appointment yesterday which happened to be near Duke Gardens, Donnie offered to take me back over to Duke Gardens for Tulips Round #2. Wow! Really?!? Way cool!
The sun was out, and I enjoyed working my way through all the flower beds again in search of fantastic light or a great angle and more bold color. I liked what I came away with and thanked Donnie very much for giving me another chance to walk among the flowers.
The tulips really were not easy to photograph. Some of the flowers were huge and the bulbs were planted kindof spaced out with ground cover under them. I had trouble getting the angle and dof that I wanted.
We came across this marker for the 36th parallel. Very neat! I had the hardest time flash or not no matter what mode getting the lettering to show up in the bright sun. Donnie's shadow helped me get most of it.
I really wasn't sure how yesterday was going to turn out. It started out chilly and cloudy and I was depressed thinking about all the things I wanted to do if only the weather would cooperate.
Madi had such a good time Saturday afternoon that she was ready to go doing something fun on Sunday too, so she got me thinking about just what could we do. I boiled some hot dogs and packed a picnic somehow without the kids seeing and set off in the car with them to find a nice picnic spot. I decided on Crowder Park which has a very nice playground that's usually full of kids If we show up at a playground that's empty the kids never seem to enjoy it as much as if they get to run with the pack of other kids at the park.
We picked one of the smaller mini playgrounds for our lunch area and then walked around the pond on our way to the big playground. This was also a great strategy for getting the kids to do the walk around the pond with me...not their favorite part of the park.
The kids loved the hot dog idea, thought it was hilarious that this squirrel tried to join our picnic several times, and were thrilled to find tent caterpillars to carry around. I enjoyed the azaleas and hearing frogs and taking my first dragonfly picture of the year. The kids met up with a boy Madi's age on the big playground, and they were acting out scenes from Star Wars. It was a good time.
Since the day was going pretty good, and the sun had come up, I decided to make the trek over to the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. Now I've been here before with the kids, and when I told them we were going they weren't too thrilled. See if you think they had fun or not. Sure seem like it to me!
It ended up being the perfect time to go to the gardens in my opinion. Azaleas, dogwoods, camellias, tulips and much more all in bloom!
Now the collage below is for all you photographers and parents out there that have ever tried to take a great picture of more than one kid at a time. What a comedy of errors this one was!
Part of the problem was that the center of the big cement dogwood flower was slippery. Add in childhood humor, rabbit ears, and everyone wanting to be in the middle all at once, and well, I didn't ever get quite the shot that I wanted. This one was the best.
I had pretty good success at just taking portraits of Madi by herself, though. I'm always impressed at how well she's able to naturally move and pose for the camera.
Here's a collage of the best flower shots I took at Duke Gardens. I didn't really have the light that I wanted and I know I didn't get a shot as good as the one I use for my Facebook timeline photo, but I still enjoyed seeing the tulips and taking the pics.
I so much wanted to have a great tulip shot yet I came away with other flowers/pictures that were better. This garden with the red and white combo of iris and tulip was my favorite.
I posted my second favorite as my daily. Purple iris with an orange flower background. The blue yellow combo and purple and white combo were also lovely!
For my daily post today, I am sharing a picture of the Stamp Mill at Reed Gold Mine. I looked for a video of it in operation on YouTube but didn't see one. It is in working order, and they do run it sometimes for school field trips, etc.
I really liked how this shot showed the leaves opening on the trees in the forest and how the path leads to the Stamp Mill. I ran 3 bracketed images through Photomatix but still wasn't 100% pleased with the result. I then ran the HDR'ed shot through Color Efex Pro and added a detail enhancing and color stylizing filter on it. I then also ran an Orton action on it but have decided not to post that version.
Yesterday the kids and I ended up at the Fuquay-Varina Easter Egg Hunt. Unfortunately, it was raining, so they just gave out buckets of eggs in the South Park Community Center Gym. It rained last year too. I hope next year the kids can really hunt for the eggs. I do appreciate that the town puts this event on and regardless of the weather. Hundreds of families turned out and enjoyed themselves.
The Easter Bunny was posing for pictures:-) I just had to strip the kids and bunny out of the original shot because the background was an off white cement block wall in the gym and was ugly. A gentle suggestion to the town would be to invest in a piece of cheap fabric as a backdrop for next year:-)
We caught up with Madi later in the day for dinner on our back deck and a trip to Porter Farms and Nursery for opening weekend. Yes, there are strawberries already!!! Not pick your own yet, but you can buy a bucket if they haven't sold out for the day yet. You can see the kids posing with some of the girls that work there. What fun!
And, even the local Garner VFD has to get their ice cream somewhere. Imagine being a kid at the local ice cream store and the fire truck pulling up! The guys let Johnny and Madi who were very interested into the cab for a few minutes. Thanks!
I mentioned in my last blog post that I had a shot of Donnie sharpening the blades on my lawn mower. Here's the best one. Pretty cool but just not a daily shot I didn't think. Johnny and I were behind a window inside the house watching. Donnie of course had on all the proper safety equipment.
Donnie's wife. Mom to Joey 14 and Johnny 13. Trying to do all sorts of cool stuff with life. Taking 1000's of pictures a month to preserve the memories.
