Crowded

The white spiderwort in my garden didn't flower well last year,
but this year they are crowded!

The first shot with the 70-200mm lens was kind of blurry, but I like the look.
For the second shot I switched to a 60mm S lens and a tripod.

It's a bright sunny day and with the sunshine hitting the white blossoms they came out washed out -- overexposed -- so I stood between the sun and the plant to make some shade.

Close to home

I like the bokeh shooting this ivy geranium from this direction. The grass and dappled sunshine in the front yard makes a nice soft background.

Blossom

I don't know what I did any different with this shot, but the water came out dark as you can see. The day was bright and sunny, and the other shots at the lily pond were overexposed, actually. I was playing with a hood and a polarizing filter, but it's a mystery to me...

Young and old

A clematis flowering near the ground.

Well, the bud is still young and the open flower is getting old!
OK -- kind of a stretch isn't it.

I was experimenting in CS5 with the content aware feature and "fixed" the open flower where some critter took a bite out of a petal. It's pretty amazing. And there was a dead leaf in the upper left that I removed with a big selection and content aware --pouf!

And I'm still playing with making "frames" with loose brushes. This one isn't half bad...

Yellow -- and white

Honeysuckle growing near the river.

Wildlife

I think these are heron "babies" -- I don't know what you call young herons, so I guess I'll just call them "hatchlings".

I think I'm over the hump with the pneumonia so I went to the rookery today with my XSi and the 70-200mm lens -- and a monopod to help me hold steadier than just hand-held. I didn't like the monopod at first, but it really helps with the extra weight of that lens! I do have an extender. Maybe I'll attach that and try again on the next clear day.
We've been having April showers in May here...

But 200mm doesn't get close enough to the nests, so I did have to crop to show the subjects. I used Lightroom to crop and vignette.

Happy birthday dear Gregory!

Gregory's 7th birthday was Saturday!

He already had more than 200 HotWheels,
but you can see how delighted he was to get more!

And when we sang "Happy Birthday" he sang, too!

Droplets

Drops of rain on my rhododendron between rain showers.