Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Gulf Fritillary at Rolling Hills Nursery

A backlit beauty at one of my favorite local nurseries! This is a Gulf Fritillary at Rolling Hills Nusery in Buellton. We have some beautiful nurseries in Santa Barbara, but sometimes it's nice to get away for the day and see what's happening in the Santa Ynez Valley. Especially this time of year with our June Gloom (costal fog that covers the city for most of the day,) which comes early sometimes. The fog is usually very beautiful in itself, but after a couple of days it's nice to be able to go get a little sun in the valley. Then we can come home to the nice cool evening termeratures.

Saturday, May 24, 2008
Evening Epi

It's a great time of year, time for our Epis to really start blooming. This one lasts a little longer than one evening so I'm pretty sure it is a hybrid of some sort. In the wild they only bloom for a single night. The blossom is about nine inches at the widest. The cup of petals in the middle is about four across. It is quite an amazing sight and makes for some nice night-time photography.

Saturday, May 17, 2008
Mexican Tulip poppy

This is a new friend that followed us home from a nice little nursury in Montecito. Nursuries are a dangerous place really, we only have a small backyard and it is getting pretty full.

Last week a similar thing happend with a Passion Flower vine and a dwarf Fingered Citron tree. Both of which will be featured on the Photo of the Day in the near future. Just as soon as their blossoms get a little further along.

Saturday, April 19, 2008
Tulip Feather

More plants followed us home from the grocery store the other day. One of them was this beautiful Tulip. The bellows was still out from the recent Ladybug fest so this shot was inevitable really.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Corn Closeup

Maybe this would have been a little more fitting image for Thanksgiving. :-D

This is another low aperture shot making the the one ear out of focus. This close, the cornsilk almost looks like angelhair pasta. I like the texture in the near husk too.

Monday, November 26, 2007
Low Aperture Poppy

I've always liked playing with low aperture shots. I like the way the stem of this poppy goes out of focus fast. For comparison, the apple from Thanksgiving was about as tight (high) aperture as this lens gets. Which kept the nice texture of the skin in focus over the whole surface.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Ladybug Daisy

I noticed this little guy (or girl) when we were walking The Hound the other day. If you look close enough you can actually see my reflection in his back. I did a little poking around to see if perhaps the lack of spots meant it was a younger ladybug (I thought I read that somewhere). But apparently it's just a different kind of Ladybug and there are hundreds of different kinds in the US, thousands in the world.

I did however, find out that the name Ladybug comes from when farmers prayed to the Virgin Mary to help save their crops from pests. When the small red beetles came to save the day (and the crops) the farmers started calling them "The Beetles of Our Lady".

Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Yellow Canna Bract

This is another Canna that my mom sent me as a bulb about 10 years ago. It has bloomed a couple of times each year for the last few years but it never had such a cool leaf or bract around the flowers like this. Even in the back yard there are always new surprises.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Yellow & White Lantana

The Hound likes to walk in the evening when the sun is low. Which is a great time to take pictures!

Sunday, August 13, 2006
Shredded Gerbera

This is another beauty from yesterday's trip to La Sumida. I love Gerbera Daisies, but it is particularly nice to see some interesting variations. I usually see them more as cut flowers but this was actually a plant. Might just have to find it a spot in the yard!

Saturday, June 10, 2006
Tomato Blossom

This one is called "Mr. Stripey"!

No! I don't name my plants...

Ok, well yeah, maybe I do.

But, not this one, he came with that name! Really! And, when this beautiful blossom turns into the HUGE tomato I know it will, you will see why!

Monday, April 3, 2006
Yellow Bells

I love Gelson's! Their produce looks like a farmer's market. They even stack everything with the stems pointing in the same direction. Particularly nice since we went there to find subjects for some still life food photography.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Strawflower

Yet another image credited to the hound! I should take more walks, and enjoy the beauty around me and she is the one who reminds me of that fact. :-D

Thursday, January 12, 2006
Yellow Winter Daisies

Don't get me wrong, I had an amazing honeymoon in Monterey. But, just the seemingly minor change in latitude made me appreciate how good we have it in Santa Barbara. These Daisies are just one of the flowers in full bloom right now around our home. I snapped this shot during a recent hound walk.

Saturday, December 10, 2005
Lone Daisy

This was a lone rebel daisy. It must have not been the right time of year for them because, in a large expanse of green, this was the only daisy.

Monday, December 5, 2005
Icing Inspiration

I'm starting to practice decorating cakes for a special event the end of this month. I have seen some beautiful roses created in icing and decorated with powdered food coloring so I was looking for an image to use as a reference. If I come close to this I'll post a photo of the buttercream version. If not... well, I'm sure it will be a delicious failure. :-D

Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Yellow Rose Close-Up

As I was looking through my images for a project I was considering this one. It has been the photo of the day before, but, I knew you could not see the small spider between the petals.

I always like to get something more than just a flower close-up. Things like this add a little life to the photo for me.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Kalanchoe Close-Up

Another photo I grew myself.

These plants are extremely beautiful and easy to grow. When the apartment we used to live in trimmed all of the palm trees they displaced all of the ummm... "residents" that live in the dry fronds. For a while we had a bit of a rat problem (outside, thankfully.) The main casualty of this was one of my oldest Kalanchoes. In about a day it was chewed level with the ground. I assumed it was done for. But, a few months later, a small plant popped up in the pot of my large Ficus tree that had been under the Kalanchoe. Apparently a small chewed up piece of the plant feel into the Ficus' pot and took root!

Kalanchoe, members of the succulent family, are native to Madagascar but their name is derived from a Chinese word.

Monday, October 10, 2005
Lucifer Canna

My mom gave me this Canna many years ago and it is blooming again. It was never very happy in a pot until we got two very tall (2.5 feet) skinny (12") pots. It seems to love to put its roots down, way down.

It is called a Canna "Lily" but it is more closely related to Ginger and Banana plants.

Friday, September 30, 2005
The Yellow Rose of... ummm... Carmel?

This was in a really nice shopping center along Highway one in Carmel. They had beautiful landscaping and one of the best and most original restaurants we've eaten at in a long time.

Thursday, September 29, 2005
Orchid

I grow a lot of my flower pictures. But this is one that I purchased while it was blooming from the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate. And, they are having an open house and sale in the beginning of November. So, I'm thinking it is time to buy some film. :-)

Perhaps while I am there they can refresh my memory as to the proper name of this guy so I can stop calling it the "red and Yellow Orchid."

Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Primary Posies

Well, I guess the flowers in the background are more purple than blue, but it is the (almost) primary colors of the flowers in this photo that I like.

I stumbled upon this scene in the planter outside of a hotel while wandering aimlessly with my camera. (I like to do that.)

Their name is from "Rana", Latin for frog. Like a frog they live in cool damp places near the water. They are native to Asia.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Dangling Orchids

Another angle on an orchid from a few months ago.

If you are in the Santa Barbara area this weekend be sure to visit the Art Walk at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. I have been working on new items for the show that I do not normally have available. It should be a great weekend!

Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Yellow Daisy

I usually look for more going on in the background of my photos. Kind of like the first image on this site. But sometimes there is something to be said for simplicity.