Night TIme is The Right Time.....

Sometimes plans don’t go according to plan. I originally had the idea of taking photos of the milky way with black eyed susans as a foreground subject. Well, the lights of Freeport and clouds washed that idea out. Instead I just pointed the camera to a darker section of sky (the west) and got this photo instead. This image is a focus stack of two photos, one focused on the sky, the other on the foreground flowers and blended in Photoshop. The sky exposure was 25 seconds at f2.8, ISO 1600 and the flowers, 30 secs @ f2.8 and the same ISO but for the flowers I used my headlamp to skim light onto them. The lens was the Canon 16-35 2.8L on my 7D Mark II. After shooting the daisys I learned not much light is needed, I just move the beam from my headlamp across the flowers for about a second or two. I discovered if you shine the light for too long on one area you tend to get a too bright, spotlight effect. I like the way the long sky exposure cause the clouds to streak, adding a little something extra to the photo.

Before and After....

The top photo is what the black eyed susan looked like this past summer and the bottom pic is how it looks today.

Mass of Yellow...

This will be the only post for me this week, I plan on taking a break. I have a big addition project going on so I don't have time to take any new photos, I'll be back next week.

Katydid....

I found this guy a day before I found the grasshopper but unlike the grasshopper this katydid jumped off the blossoms after I took a few photographs and I haven't seen it since.

Grasshopper...

I found this guy right in the middle of my black eyed susan patch so I slowly eased my tripod into place and took some photos. It didn't have a problem with that but it was a little distracted by my foil reflector but not enough to hop off. If you look closely you can see the shine of the reflector in its eye. I took this picture in the morning and I checked back later in the evening and it was still in the same spot, it didn't move all day.

Two More......

There isn't much I can say about these photos, just continuing my "life on a black eyed susan" series.

Yellow on Yellow...

I keep a section of my lawn unmowed, it's my minature meadow. Since black eyed susans are biannuals, every other year the unmowed section is covered with them. For the rest of this week I'll be posting photos of the critters that I find on the blacked eyed susans. I found the crab spider on Saturday and I took the top photo. I went and checked again on Sunday and it was still there but this time it was having dinner so I took the bottom picture.

Black Eyed Susans....

The other day I noticed this mass of black eyed susans in a vacant lot just off of Rt. 196 so I pulled in to take some photos. This is one of the pictures I took but while I was there I found another flower that I haven't seen too many of in the wild. Tomorrow I'll be posting a photo of that flower and I think it's one of the best pictures I've taken in years.

Black Eyed Susan....

The black eyed susans are in full bloom right now and they can be found on roadsides and in meadows everywhere around the state.