Turning Over A New Leaf

Deborah and I just got home from a trip to Pipestem State Park in West Virginia. What a beautiful state. Always love visiting there, anywhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains ain't bad. I shot lots of pictures this weekend. We were doing a family reunion so I did a bunch of family photos, but also a lot of nature stuff...plant life, a ton of deer pictures.  The leaves are just beginning to turn, and I found this one. 

It was on the ground nestled up to a less pretty leaf, and kind of curved in on itself.  As I started shooting it, I decided it would be cool to try to get the lens inside the curve of the leaf. I was shooting with my little Olympus, so I put it on "Super Macro" so I could get really close.  Changed to Aperture priority to get maximum depth of field. Shooting inside really brought out the backlight coming through the top part of the leaf.  The veins and texture of the leaf really pop.

The little digital cameras make this kind of image so easy to shoot. Ad the small size, great meter, awesome macro capability and vibration reduction, and you just can't go wrong.

Will post some omre images later in the week. Got a killer spider to show off.

Old Glory

 

This is an entirely different view of the American Flag that hangs on our front porch.

I had gone out to photograph the tiny blooms on a tomato plant and while shooting the bloom, I noticed the way the light was playing on Deborah's orchid.  While chimping through the orchid photos, I saw the flag in the background and decided there was a photo to be had. 

I am not sure how I ended up on my back under the flag, but it had a WOW factor of about a 12, so I had at it. I was using my little Olympus XZ-1 and used the Dramatic Tone art filter to enhance the tones and darken the sky.  Of course, any time you photograph a flag, the wind drops away before you can pop the first frame. Had to wait for the wind to come back, but it was worth it.

 

And, by the way, here's the tomato bloom that started the whole thing.