My second try for the Xanthe Berkeley class using iMovie. This time for the stop-frame animation I used my iPhone on a tripod and Timer app to take the pictures of the succulent. More successful there, I think. 95% of the photos in the movie are taken with my iPhone but a few are from my files back in the day when I would use my Canon. This one doesn’t have much of a story thread, so I will have to work on that aspect next time.
The garden still grows even though this has been a strange weather year…not much sun or heat so the California fuchsia (Epilobium canum) is late and not so abundent…but at least the bright red is working some magic, at last…the little spot of color is the last hurrah before the dormancy of winter… a plant that can lighten your mood…and very adept at attracting hummingbirds (who just love, love, love it)…from this morning’s reconnoiter of the garden pathway…
Taken with the iPhone 4 native camera but cropped, vignetted, and framed with Snapsneed on the iPad.
Took a break and noticed that the Snowberry (Symphoricarpos mollis) is starting to bloom…
Taken with an iPhone 4 and processed with Snapseed app on an iPad. Good news…Snapseed is now available for the iPnone.
I am an IG’er. There I said it. Addicted to posting pictures on the Instagram site. I am definitely not a Twitterer, takes too many words. But Instagram is visually just up my alley. Some people have thousands of followers, me, not so much. I do however enjoy telling people that I like their images with a ♥. Also, I follow Jamie Oliver, the chef. He is in Tuscany right now and I learned about Amoro from him tonight. The other interesting thing is that I have learned about photography from joining groups on the sight. I am not really one that would join in a flash mob in Union Square, but one poster proposed as many people as possible post to #ortonoffensive at a particular time and day in an attempt to have the entire popular page of the site made up of orton shots for that time. Pretty interesting if you think about it. I did not, however, have any idea what an orton shot was. I had an app that had an Orton filter which led me to Wickipedia. Photographer Michael Orton invented the Orton slide sandwich where two shots of the same image, one focused, one out of focus, are layered for high and low detail in the same image. You can also create this ethereal effect using Photoshop Elements. Here is a tutorial.
Yesterday, my post was Orton shots of my garden. I couldn’t get things to stop moving and be focused anyway because of the breeze so I tried to exploit it. I did forget one of my pictures in the post so here it comes today with this explanation.
The original foggy, blurry shot of a Spice Bush flower:
Run through the Dynamic Light app for the Orton Filter:
With an added frame from Snapseed app:
I think the image was saved from itself and will make a nice entry in a visual journal. Plus I learned something new.
On Instagram I am @loisreynoldsmead and at Posterous I am http://loisreynoldsmead.posterous.com/
Last week I documented the colors of the monkeyflowers in my garden but missed one because it had not bloomed yet. Now it has. It is called Carnivale and is a strong orange-red color with a wash of intense yellow around the edges. The plant grows differently than the others also, much lower to the ground. That may be due, however, to the fact the sweet-dog Katie dug at it when it was first planted. That undoubtedly gave it a little shock, but it is fine now. Monkeyflowers are nothing if not hardy, requiring little water and just a cut back each year to keep them in a bushy shape. Such a great garden plant! The blossoms in the pictures have raindrops still on them from showers yesterday. They had not moved into the sun yet this morning to dry off. We purchased this plant at the Yerba Buena Nursery a few months ago when we traveled across the bay to the shrine of California Native Plants.
Mimulus “Carnivale”
I processed all of the monkeyflower photos the same so that they would look consistent. They were taken with the iPhone4 native camera, put into the Iris Photo Suite for crop, sharpen, and vignette. Then into Photo Studio app for a frame. I seem to be using the Iris app more and more because I believe last week I used Perfect Photo app for the sharpening. Another thing I am enjoying more and more is Instagram. Instant feedback on your photos and it easily posts to Posterous or Facebook. Who knew you could have so much fun with photos!
I have mentioned before in this blog my talented niece, Katura Reynolds, who is a scientific illustrator. She recently designed a poster for a festival at the arboretum where she works. This poster featured a Monkeyflower and in her own blog she showed how she used layers in Photoshop to create her layout. Her sketch-blog even has a slide show, so check it out here.
Our garden library of personal monkeyflowers increased this year because of visits to Annie’s Annuals and the Yerba Buena Nursery. All except one have opened their blossoms, so today’s post will share the beauty and variety of the monkey flower (Mimulus aurantiacus) and then when the last one blooms, it will get its own post. These photos were all taken with an iPhone 4′s native camera and then processed with these apps in the order listed: Iris app (crop and vignette), Perfect Photo app (sharpen), and Photo Wizard app (frame).
From California Native Plants for the Garden by Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O’Brien: “With their large showy flowers and preference for partial shade, shrubby monkeyflowers are often mistaken for azaleas. They exhibit an astonishing range of flower colors, including pure reds, yellows, oranges, apricots, whites, creams and even pinks and purples….If you are looking for a reason for the common name, monkeyflower, look no further—there isn’t any.”
Yellow
Peach
Scarlet (mixed with some Black Sage (Salvia Mellifera)
The scarlet from the side
White (I am not one to really understand botany, but the book lumps them all together under aurantiacus, however, this white one had a tag that labeled it Mimulus bifidus and in the book this is described as azalea-flowered that are the largest flowers of the species.)
Cherry
Pink
Jelly Bean Purple Pink
A plant planted this year
A plant that has been in the garden for three years
When the blossoms on the last plant (“carnivale”) open, I will share pictures. I just can’t seem to get enough of the monkeyflower.
The garden is bloomin’ along. There are other native plants beside the Iris flourishing this year.
Padre’s Shooting Star (Dodecatheon clevelandii ssp. Insulare)
Flowering Dogwood (Cornus sericea)
Western Spicebush (Calycanthus occidentalis)
Meadow Foam (Limnanthes douglasii)
Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium bellum ‘Rocky Point”)
Shasta Sulphur Buckwheat (Eriogonum umbellatum var. polyanthum)
Shasta Snow-wreath (Neviusia cliftonii)
California Wild Rose (Rosa californica)
And, of course, a non-native volunteer that contributes some cute blossoms.
Hawthorne (species unknown)
The California Academy of Sciences opened a new exhibit last weekend and we exercised our membership privilege to get there early and enjoy it without massive crowds.
Lemon Drop is the mascot. This is a photo of a photo because even though we saw Lemon Drop raise his head and slither around, there was too much reflection on the glass of his enclosure for a shot. In the new exhibit itself you are not allowed to take photos, but there were plenty of other snakes around.
and even rainforest snakes
Surrounding Lemon Drop’s abode is this great graphic of just how long he is
And other great things to see:
Of course, there is Claude…
The robotic anaconda from the movie of the same name…
A musical fountain…
A living wall with some of my favorite California native plants…
I truly want to make one of these on the side of my house.
Usually on a Friday, I process my iPhone photos with my current favorite apps, but this week my focus has been on my California native plant garden because it has been bursting forth into glory. I tried processing the photos I took with the camera in my iPhone with lots of different apps, but they could not compete with the actual flowers in the garden. If you want apps, you will have to look in my other Friday posts. Today, I simplified and I am just using the iPhone photos without processing except with a little cropping using Crop Suey. This has been the week of the Douglas Iris. It won’t last very long, but while it does it makes my spirit soar.
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