Fun with Flowers

Yesterday, I spent some time in my heated garage, with an improvised photography studio. The day before. I bought a beautiful hibiscus with three buds from the local garden centre. I was hoping to do a time-lase series of the buds opening but I discovered the buds were already fully opened when I went out to the garage yesterday morning. So, I spent some time trying out different lenses, lighting, and compositions.

I posted two of the best shots to my Flickr page (see link in upper right of this page). I thought I'd write about the experience here.

The shot above shows two of the opened flowers. This a somewhat distant shot to show the blooms and leaves, lit by an on-camera flash. I used a spiky plant in the background to hide the distracting garage clutter. This was the starting point for subsequent close-ups. I thought the blooms themselves and the stamens needed to viewed closer, leading to the shots posted on my Flickr page.

Today, I was going to do a series of much closer shots of the flower parts, at magnifications of 1-5x this morning. Sadly, the blooms were one-day wonders. They had already started to curl up and wither away. There's still one unopened bud so maybe I still get those shots in a few days. I must say that, by doing this photographic exercise, I learned some good lessons for next time.

Sweet Sixteen

Sara (Margaret's niece) and her friend were waiting for the show (Jail House Rock) to begin at Celebrations Dinner Theatre on the weekend.

Sara turned sixteen and celebrated her birthday by going on her first date with her friend Bradley. She obviously had a good time, even appearing in front of the audience when people celebrating their birthdays were called up on stage. She quickly became the star of the show. Yay, Sara, another milestone in your life.

Rain and Snow Coming

This Saturday and Sunday doesn't look great, weather-wise. Not that we don't expect late winter storms in Winterpeg. We've had our share over the years. Everyone here remembers early April, 1997, which dumped tons of snow on us and led to the flood of the century. That's unlikely to be repeated this weekend.

Sunday evening, we plan to see the new show at Celebrations Dinner Theatre, with my daughter, Josi, and her family. This musical is called "Jail House Rock" and will feature the tunes of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. It should be a fun evening.