Flowers | Tony's Takes Photography

First springtime backyard flower photo session

May 27, 2021 by Tony Leave a Comment

With slightly overcast skies and calm winds, yesterday evening looked to be a good time to get out and play with some macro photography.

My wife’s flower gardens are starting to show some nice color with a decent little variety of subject matter. This type of photography isn’t normally “my thing”, but I do enjoy it and it is kind of nice to just walk out the back door and snap some pics.

Among the highlights blooming right now were columbine (of course!), iris, candytuft, basket of gold and a couple of others whose names escape me.

These gardens were made possible in no small part through a program with the City of Thornton and Thornton Water Conservation. We ripped up a ton of turf and replaced it with things like these that conserve water – and of course provide great photo ops. 😉

Macro closeup of an iris. (© Tony's Takes) — Macro closeup of an iris. (© Tony’s Takes)

A blooming flower in Colorado. (© Tony's Takes) — A blooming flower in Colorado. (© Tony’s Takes)

Field of gold

September 10, 2020 by Tony Leave a Comment

As I mentioned before, I didn’t really spend much time on the sunflowers this season. There was just way too much drama at the fields and way too much bad behavior and I didn’t want to deal with the stress.

I did manage a couple “drive-bys” though when out taking picture of other subjects. This one, taken mid-August, is one of my favorites.

The field itself was relatively small so it didn’t lend itself to a wider shot. Instead, I zoomed in, capturing a dense spot giving it a much bigger feel than what was really there. Plus, that one sunflower standing just a bit taller than the others was a nice draw.

Sunflowers, sunset and smoke

August 16, 2020 by Tony Leave a Comment

I had been avoiding taking my annual trip(s) out to see the sunflowers northeast of Denver, Colorado. The evening thunderstorms that help to make those scenes dramatic have been non-existent and replaced by smoke and haze from wildfires across the northern part of the state.

Throw in a lot of bad behavior by other photographers and visitors (trespassing, damaging the crops), and my motivation to go out there has been pretty low. Last night though, I decided to head out with a buddy and give it a shot.

There were no clouds to speak of, just haze from the smoke. While the sunset wasn’t anything overly dramatic, it did provide some nice colors and silhouetted the mountains pretty nicely.

Shooting into the sun is a challenge that usually results in the foreground being too dark or the sky being blown out. To help mitigate that, this is actually three images shot immediately one after another – the first dark, the first at what the camera thought was a good exposure, and the third bright. I then took the three and merged them together on the computer, helping to bring out pretty decent colors in the foreground and capture the sky without blowing it out too bad.

Golden sunflowers and the blue, Colorado sky

July 19, 2020 by Tony Leave a Comment

If you look close, there is a bee in there as well.

My photo excursion this morning was pretty much a dud so when I returned to the house, I mounted up my macro lens and headed to the backyard.

These sunflowers are actually a bit of an accident. We had a bird feeder in this spot last year and this year, well, it appears the sunflower seeds in the birdseed had babies. 😉 Kind of fun and there were a ton of them. We had to pull a bunch but still probably have a dozen back there.

Springtime blooms

April 12, 2020 by Tony Leave a Comment

My wife’s flower gardens have started coming to life with the warmer weather. That means I get some new photo opportunities right out my back door – and gives me a chance to play with my macro lens.

I got the lens a couple months ago but haven’t really used it much so it was fun to get out there this past week and play around. It is really an impressive piece of glass and I am impressed with the detail I can capture with it.

I am looking forward to seeing some bugs appear so I can play with them too.

Closeup of some spring flowers in Colorado. (© Tony’s Takes)

First blooms of spring

March 22, 2020 by Tony Leave a Comment

I’ve been anxiously awaiting seeing some flowers popup in our backyard so I could play with my new macro lens. Earlier this week I saw one had appeared but the light wasn’t conducive to taking pics and then everything got buried by our first day of spring snowstorm.

Yesterday warmed up just enough to uncover the little guy though so I went out and took a few pics. I still need some practice to get the depth of field right on these closeups but this one came out pretty good. I have no idea what kind of flower this is but it definitely is a pretty one.

Valentine’s flower gets a closeup

March 4, 2020 by Tony Leave a Comment

Something a bit different. Obviously this flower wasn’t outside – it was a leftover from a bouquet I bought my wife. It provided a nice opportunity for me to experiment with a new toy, my first, true macro lens.

The Canon EF 100mm f2.8 L is pretty cool and well-known for its ability to do amazing closeup work. I won’t use it much but thought it would be fun to play with in the yard with flowers, bugs and snowflakes. The detail is clearly pretty awesome.

Golden, stormy sunset over sunflowers

October 21, 2019 by Tony Leave a Comment

Now that’s a sunset, eh? Sunflowers below, storm clouds with virga above and those Rocky Mountains dominating the horizon in the distance.

I was flipping through some recent pics and came across this one taken at the end of August that I hadn’t shared yet.

I was at this spot east of Denver, Colorado primarily to photograph the sunflowers but soon I became focused on also capturing the gathering storm clouds. They didn’t produce much but they did definitely add drama to the scene.

Image available for purchase here.

Shocking sunflowers

August 22, 2019 by Tony Leave a Comment

A little bit of lightning fun on the plains of Colorado.

I was a bit late getting to this spot yesterday evening and missed much of the show. Thankfully, I did get there in time to get a few cool captures.

The thunderstorms were quite strong and very electrified sending many bolts to the ground. Throw in the orange glow of the setting sun and the flowers and it was pretty neat.

I don’t have a lightning trigger so just have to keep snapping pics repeatedly hoping lightning pops at the right time.

Lightning pops over a field of sunflowers east of Denver, Colorado. (© Tony’s Takes)

Even the sunflowers like to watch a Colorado sunrise

August 12, 2019 by Tony Leave a Comment

A break from pics of my visit to the 49th state to an image from the 38th taken this past weekend.

My photo outing Saturday wasn’t as productive as I would have liked but I did find a few worthy subjects. Most notable were the first signs of blooming sunflower fields.

Only a small portion of them have opened with prime time probably still a week or two away. The ones that were open did make a few, nice compositions like this one.