The Photographers thread: Show us your stuff!!

[Jed Cooper]

Thanks, Matt, I appreciate your compliment and help. 🙂


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[Jed Cooper]

A Humbling Experience February 7, 2020

Walking With God

I went for a walk today, continuing physical therapy for my right knee.  I look up to the sky and see an opening through the trees.  All at once I feel vulnerable, yet humbled feeling the presence of God.  I am not a religious man, but thank Him for this day, for letting me know He is always here, thinking of Him or not.  The comfort and joy I briefly felt is almost indescribable.  My outlook is usually the glass is half empty.  Looking up, past the trees and into the sky and feeling God’s presence helped me to see, albeit briefly, that the glass is, indeed, half full. 
🙂




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[Jed Cooper]

A Contemplative Walk
Pine Grove Cemetery
February 19, 2020

I change my route today, to extend my walking therapy.  I decide to go through a local cemetery where I live in Salem, New Hampshire.  I’ve passed it dozens of times since I’ve moved here, but this is my first visit.  At first, what I feel is somber.  I am always humbled when I enter a cemetery.  The gloomy feeling of finality is always present.  I look around and silently bless the dearly departed.  It’s sunny out today so I decide to capture some images of nature.  The sun is vibrant and alive in its’ glowing, powerful presence.  While this is the final resting place for many, the sun watches over them and the living as always.  I notice some dead branches and trees along the way and feel thankful God has granted me another day of existence.










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[Jed Cooper]

Nice day out for a walk.

















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[KC]

Ooh! Ooh! Parhelia! (Second-to-last photo.) Schubert wrote a song about that!

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/_vvWqmKMyyU" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/_vvWqmKMyyU</a>

[Jed Cooper]

God Bless the Dearly Departed. 🙏🙏

Today was a day of paying respects.  While visiting my brother Sion, I remembered the actor John Cazale was buried in Malden.  Different cemetery but I thought I’d go pay my respects there, too.  Very easy to find. 

Something very special happened today, for the first time.  I truly believe Mike said hello in his own way to me.  As I was heading out, upon starting my car Led Zeppelin was playing on the radio!  Yeah, Mike! Rock on!

Mom, Uncle Fred, Sion, Mike, Grandma & Grandpa I’ll have the biggest hugs for you when we meet again. You are loved and missed every day.  God Bless. 🙏❤️🙏

I’ve only included the gravestone of Cazale because I’ve posted the others before so instead decided to share images of the sun I captured from each cemetery.  Oh yeah, the image of the radio playing Led Zeppelin, too, that goes along with my story about my friend Mike.

Take care and stay safe, everybody. 🙏🙂


















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[Matt]

Since COVID, I've barely left the house. But, we have a huge sunflower field just 20 minutes from home. It's about 80 acres of black oil sunflowers, the tallest are over 7-8 feet tall, with flower heads nearly about a foot across.




 

[Christopher]

Impressive shots of the bee!

[KC]

They're all gorgeous!

What equipment did you use? Were you that close on the bee/flowerhead shots? If so ... how'd you get up there?

[Matt]

They're all gorgeous!

What equipment did you use? Were you that close on the bee/flowerhead shots? If so ... how'd you get up there?

You have an eye -- good catch figuring out how to shoot that bee from above,when they're 7-8 feet tall. These photos were from 3 shoots -- one was at sunset, which are pics 5-8 plus the pic of the bee flying away from the flower. I went back the next day in the morning to get bluer skies -- that's the rest of them except for the macro (close up) shots.  The close-up of the bee and the extreme closeup of the flower head were taken in my front yard where I propped up some cut sunflowers from the field (they sell them by the stem) and waited for the bees that love my hibiscus bush to discover the sunflowers, which they did. So I was able to shoot down into the heads with a long zoom lens.  Here's a pic from that same shoot -- on a hibiscus flower.



My camera is a Nikon D7200, and for the macro photos, I used a zoom with a maximum length of 150mm.

To get proper photos of the field, I think I'd need either a crane or a drone -- impossible to get any sense of the scale of the field from standing level with the field.

[KC]

I love the macro shots! If I ever really get into photography, that's what I'd like to do.

Speaking of tall sunflowers, though ... this afternoon, out in Central Park, I saw some that must have been ten feet tall, at least. The flowerheads weren't as big as the ones in your field. It's amazing to think that something can grow that much in a few months, starting from a tiny seed.

[The Schofield Kid]

That's brilliant. Something you'd see in a wildlife magazine or the like.

[Matt]

I love the macro shots! If I ever really get into photography, that's what I'd like to do.

Speaking of tall sunflowers, though ... this afternoon, out in Central Park, I saw some that must have been ten feet tall, at least. The flowerheads weren't as big as the ones in your field. It's amazing to think that something can grow that much in a few months, starting from a tiny seed.

They're really amazing.  Surprisingly, their beautiful blooms only last (at most) 14 days. This field is announcing the flowers are already drooping and they will close to the public sometime this week. They only opened last Sunday, so just a little over a week.  The cut flowers I bought dropped their heads already, so I'm hanging them upside down to dry them out and then will harvest for seeds. I'll attempt to grow them next year myself. I don't expect a great result, but I had a lot of fun photographing them, so I'd like to give it a try.

A funny thing about shooting this field -- it's something I've always wanted to do. I thought I'd have to travel out of state to find a field, and was thrilled to find a local farm open to the public right here. But, I never expected my favorite pics from the shoot to be the macro photos, which you can do with any cut flower in your own yard.  I can't help but be a little disappointed in the overall field pictures I took, since they just don't give any sense of scale. Here's one more of an attempt to capture the large field:

That's brilliant. Something you'd see in a wildlife magazine or the like.

Thank you! 

[AKA23]

That's brilliant. Something you'd see in a wildlife magazine or the like.

Fancy playing a National Geographic photographer that has an affair with a house wife, Matt? Haha!

[Gant]

Only if the housewife was Barbara Hershey 😉

[KC]

Fancy playing a National Geographic photographer that has an affair with a house wife, Matt? Haha!

"The Sunflowers of Madison County"!

[The Schofield Kid]

"The Sunflowers of Madison County"!

 

[Matt]

"The Sunflowers of Madison County"!

Those are poisonous!

[Doug]

Incredibly good photos, Matt. Van Gogh did a whole series of paintings of sunflowers.

[KC]

Incredibly good photos, Matt. Van Gogh did a whole series of paintings of sunflowers.

Yes, but Matt's are more realistic!