The art of creating dreamy flowers

I've been doing a lot of reading to educate myself on how to create a dreamy looking flower portrait.  Surprisingly there are only a few photographers who have posted the technique to follow so I am learning by trial and error.  I have watched a few youtube videos as well and am contemplating signing up for a Photography course to learn more.  For now, I'm experimenting with what I have read and anxiously waiting for the fields of flowers to be in bloom.

I have some tulips in a vase and a group of flowers blooming in my garden. I started with the vase as the weather wasn't the greatest outside.  I used a black poster board as a prop.  These pictures are a series of the same photo that have been blended together to create a full shot that is all in focus regardless of where you look.  It can large number of photos and in these cases there are as many as 15 - 50 photographs which are then imported into Photoshop and "aligned" and then "stacked".  I enjoy doing this and it's good practice but it didn't give me what I was looking for. When doing this it also creates "huge" files and often my computer is unable to handle them.  I have to get creative to find ways to transfer them and use a separate hard drive for this purpose.  While I liked these,  I wanted something that was more "dreamy".  So it's back to the drawing board.  

The flowers in the garden are really pretty but they are very low growing to the ground forcing me to lay on my stomach to photograph them.  I tried using a tripod and it doesn't work as it's really important to position the focal point directly on the desired area in the photo.  I pulled out my yoga mat and a pillow to help me lay on the ground without agitating my shoulder too much.  I was pretty sore by the time I finished but it's good practice and right now gives me something to do to amuse myself.

The following photos are getting closer, but they're not quite there yet.  I need to better understand how to get that "blurred" look in the foreground and have some beautiful bokeh in the background.  I'll keep trying.

I practiced a bit today again in  between services.  I still have some more learning to do but I'm slowly seeing effect that I am hoping to achieve.  I want to go to the Arboretum this week to try my luck with the daffodils.  

While I was laying on my stomach "manually" focusing on the flowers, I got photo bombed by and ant and a bee.  Hah hah, it added a bit of excitement for me to see them.  I didn't quite have the right shutter speed for the ant but I still thought it was pretty fun to see.  The bee stuck around for quite some time gathering up the pollen.  I'm always happy to have them in the garden.

Myrtle Beach - March 27 - 31

This is our last couple of days.  I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by.  It's  been a fun 3 months and we look forward to coming back again next winter.  Sunday was a quiet day spent at the condo.  In between services we walked the beach and enjoyed the sunshine.  It was a little colder and sweaters were needed.  We found some more sharks teeth to add to Brody's collection. We were able to find a couple of larger teeth which was exciting.  On Monday morning the temperature was sitting at 6c and was pretty chilly.  We went back to the Pier to watch the sunrise.  We certainly felt the cold with the wind blowing.  We both took a few pictures.  Ralph was using our filters as he wanted to flatten out the water.  As well, he chose to use a "wide angle" lens which allows him to pick up a large percentage of the foreground. I think his photographs turned out quite nice.  We also went to Murrells Inlet to enjoy the pelicans for a while and also went in search of the Wisteria. It's just starting to come in bloom and is really beautiful.

I was moving all around the beach trying to get different perspectives.  In the end I really like how this picture turned out. I was using a 24-105 lens which gave me lots of opportunity to zoom in and out until I was happy with the composition.  I really like how the starburst came through the Pier.  This was achieved by setting my aperture value to f22.

Tuesday and Wednesday were golfing days.  We golfed at the Pearl and also at Prestwick.  We enjoyed both courses, but the weather was so different.  On Tuesday we had hand warmers in our gloves and we were drinking coffee with a splash of Irish cream to help keep us warm and on Wednesday we were in skirts and tshirts enjoying the warmer temperatures.  We were surprised to see the gaters out on the course on Tuesday.  There was a lot and they were quite big.

Ralph and I went to the Pier for one last time this morning.  We wanted to take a photo of the two of us together.  Wow was the tide ever high making it challenging.  Afterwards we went and played our round at Prestwick.

Prestwick is a very beautiful and challenging course.  The best part is that it's only about 20 minutes from the condo.

It's been a great winter.  We hope to leave early in the morning.  Back to Toronto and some colder weather.

Myrtle Beach - March 20 - 26

The weather has been in the 20's for most of this week.  It starts off cooler in the morning but gradually warms up as the day progresses. We golfed on Monday and Tuesday (Aberdeen and Leopards Chase).  The alligators are out enjoying the sun now and we often see them on a couple of the holes.  On Wednesday, Friday and Saturday mornings Ralph and I drove the Pier to photograph the sunrise.  I had been talking about doing this ever since we got here and we finally went.  We really enjoyed the early morning sunrise. On Wednesday they were forecasting some severe storms and I was looking forward to getting some more lightning shots.  About 3:00 in the morning the storm hit and it was pretty wild.  It was directly over our condo at one point.  I was pretty nervous trying to get shots and had my camera sitting in the condo on the tripod attempting to photograph something.  When it moved over the ocean I moved outside.  It lasted till almost 4:15 in the morning.  What an experience it was.  We relaxed on Thursday as it was a full day of rain.  A good book reading day.  On Friday we went to Murrells Inlet and enjoyed watching the pelicans.  While we were there a really beautiful Osprey flew overhead.

The two pictures above were taken with the camera in the room as these lightning strikes were happening directly in front of the condo.

On Friday evening we were blessed with an amazing sunset.  We haven't had many nice sunsets that we can enjoy because at this time of the year the sun sets behind us.  I found the sky was just painted with beautiful colours.  

On Saturday we went back to Huntington to enjoy the birds and to watch a Birds of Prey demonstration.  We went early so that we could spend some time at the causeway and also  also walk down the south end of the park.  We saw the osprey again and there was a lot of alligators in the pond.  They vary in size but it was interesting to see.  During our walk at the south end, an alligator came up from one to pond to the other and walked directly in front of Ralph (maybe 5 feet away).  I had seen it coming and backed up as quickly as I could frantically changing my settings to capture a shot.  Ralph didn't quite realize what was happening as it was there so fast.  Thankfully it was only interested in getting to the other side.  The Birds of Prey demonstration was interesting.  We certainly learned alot and I'm glad we went to see the demonstration.  There was a black turkey vulture as part of the demonstration and he was so cute.  He would run around, skip, jump and run into the crowd of people watching.  You could tell that he was really used to people.  It was a fun day.

I love this shot of the snowy egret.  If you look closely you can see it's eye just at the surface of the water.

The beautiful breeding eye.  I love how green the eye mask gets at this time of year.

Another favourite shot of mine.  If you enlarge the photo you get a better view of the herons face.  I call it peek a boo.

Lastly a few shots from the Birds of Prey show.

It's been a very full week but we both have really enjoyed ourselves.  We've started packing and plan to leave for home early Thursday morning.