Capturing the Monarchs of fall before they fly to their winter home

Yesterday was a hot day and you know how butterflies love that.  I am glad to have spent some time at Meadowlark Gardens yesterday afternoon because today is cooler and much less promising for capturing butterflies.  For all that I spent an hour in the gardens, I spent significantly more time than that sorting photos on the computer.  Sorting through them all and getting them finally to the blog is akin to ripping off the blue tape after you have spent all day painting your living room:  Voila and Tada!

My flickr set is linked below the photos, do take a look:  I promise you there are only 34 total photos. 

Enjoy the photos of my favorite butterfly (and another one I cannot identify, but isn't she pretty?) and look out next month for photos from their winter home in Pacific Grove, California (on the Monterey Peninsula).  The East Coast Monarchs go to Mexico for the winter, whereas the West Coast Monarchs fly to Pacific Grove. 

Picture roving gangs of butterflies, traveling at 10,000 feet, buffeted by the winds.  How many will make it?  What if the East Coast Monarchs crossed paths with the West Coast Monarchs?  Would there be a brawl?  Would tiny rap songs be written about the event?  How would they even know which coast was home?  So many questions to ponder.  hahaha

And here are all thirty-four of them:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skywalkerbeth/tags/meadowlarkbutterflies/show/

And now for something completely different

More flowers!  Fooled ya with the title, huh?

I set up my Canon 30D on my Gitzo tripod near my kitchen window (IE sidelighting).  Canon 35mm F1.4L lens, set on F2.0.  I let the camera select the shutter speed when I started shooting then did some bracketing/viewfinder viewing to see where the best exposure was.  Then, I set the timer (10 seconds) and each time I tripped the shutter I would run around behind the flowers with a different colorful dishcloth (all bought in Provence) and hold it up behind the flowers as a backdrop.  I even used a big sheet of tinfoil as a backdrop for one photo. 

Please vote!

I had a great Saturday morning!  I was part of a fun photo outing which involved only my club but many photographers around the world.  Scott Kelby (a renowned photographer) started the annual Worldwide Photo Walks three years ago. 

The entire concept inspiring the walk is fantastic - to think that on the same day in numerous communities around the world photographers were wandering around, on the same mission, on a photo treasure hunt.  Immediately afterwards everyone meets for lunch and then in the days afterwards the bounty from the treasure hunts trickle in.  Each person submits the one they like the best to Scott's website and also the flickr website for their gallery.  I especially like the random group shots of the photographers taken around the world. 

Some of the subjects were lower on the list of things I gravitate towards shooting so it was a little stretch for me. For instance, I rarely take photos of people because I feel shy doing so - I either feel intrusive or just plain funny taking candids of strangers... whereas this time some of us had a pair of delightful little girls to photograph. I think this exercise made you look harder at familiar surroundings.  At any rate, which of my photos do you think I should submit? 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skywalkerbeth/sets/72157624468654509/show/

Thanks for looking!

I chose this one to submit.  I did not win.  Nonetheless, this was fun. 

Yes, it really is that blue!

More photos of scenic Switzerland... These photos were all taken from an ICN train - IC stands for "Inter City" (which means FAST) and the N must stand for "tilt" because that is what it does. The regular IC trains do not tilt around curves but the ICN trains do lean into curves. Not quite like a motorcycle (there was no scraping of knee pads) but the effect was quite noticeable. Hang on to your drinks!


The train ride was beautiful but when we got to Lake Lucerne we all gasped. So blue! I assume this is due to glaciers, because the last time I saw water that blue was when I flew in a little Cessna 172 over Whistler, British Columbia, to see the glaciers in those parts. Glacier Lake Blue I called the color then, and it is stupendous.

Enjoy!

Hiking in the Alps - a perfect ending to our trip

 

These were all taken at Schynige Platte in the Berner Oberland. Dad is pointing out the hash marks on the trail which warn of difficult conditions. He is a trouper!  He had broken his hip four months before we left on our trip and he went hiking in the Alps with me!  Whatta guy.

The mountain you can see through the flowers is, I believe, the Eiger.

Lovely Lavender

This year I won't be in Provence, but I am very lucky to get my lavender fix right outside my front door.  See the previous blog post, with all the bees in lavender?  They greet me each morning. 

These photos were taken on a mini-road trip with my friend Monica a few weekends ago.  There is a little farm in Pennsylvania, not far from Gettysburg, which has an annual Lavender Festival.  They grow a wide variety of lavender and one particularly vivid and fragrant kind is called Hidcote.  Most of these photos are of Hidcote Lavender.  Enjoy.

Bees in the Lavender! Bzzz! Bzzz!

I have a glorious, huge lavender plant right in front of my house. It's so big you cannot get by it without brushing against it. The smell of lavender follows you into the car. These days the bees are humming around it and I've counted more than ten at one time. Here are some photos:

Nothing like photography to take the sting out of eye surgery...

I am back.

I had invasive eye surgery on Tuesday and on Saturday went with my photo club to Brookside Gardens to take photos of the many butterflies.  Brookside has a Wings of Fancy exhibit each year and this was my first visit there.  This was a private, planned club outing and the chief advantage was that we were allowed to have tripods.  When the general public visits, no tripods. 

Naturally, I forgot my tripod.  All the below are handheld.  I'm not proud.  I'm less proud to say that I didn't experiment as much as I should - I mostly set my aperture on 4.0 (for the short DOF) and then either let the camera choose the speed (mostly 1/13, 1/15, 1/20) which made for a lot of fuzzy fotos.  A few times I manually set the shutter speed to 1/125 which made for less fuzzy fotos but a little darker.  Like a dunce I should have unleashed the power of the 7D - it has much better high ISO performance. 

I took about 400 photos, of which I felt 60 were not embarrassing.  I put 20 on flickr, and here below enjoy five of them! 

I haven't visited Meadowlark Gardens in nearly a month and hope to go back next weekend. Stay tuned...

ps.  gotta have at least one Monarch here:

Margaret's Garden

I have been hearing about Margaret's Garden in Reston for two years now, at least. I've never sought it out, which was a mistake. Now that I have the new 7D, I decided to go for a drive and find it. Below are some photos taken both on either midday on a Sunday, or, 830 AM one morning before work.