Sunny

Columbine (Aquilegia hybrida), May 2010

A funny thing happened while I was happily, almost obsessively snapping and processing images of flowers: my Jewelry Mojo came back home. Today I finished four pairs of bird earrings, three Kumihimo necklaces, and oxidized brass bails for five ceramic pendants, and will finish a few more Kumihimo necklaces this evening. I've been wondering whether I was so far gone with the photography (ya think??) that I'd never get back to jewelry, either on this blog or at my workbench. But this afternoon I realized that creative expression in any form fills the well, so to speak, and sure enough my inspiration to create some new pieces is back.

This columbine is from the church garden I wrote of yesterday; I love the tangle of stamens and pistils, which became the obvious focus of the shot as I processed it in Photoshop. Looking at this and other shots I realize I need to learn more about how to work aperture and shutter speed on my camera so I can play more with depth of field. This image, which I do like a lot, is cropped from a larger one that shows the whole flower, including the characteristic "wings" extending from the flower's base, but has a very shallow depth of field and thus is less representative of the flower than I'd like. So, more learning... gee, I think I need to take a photo trip soon. I already have an offer to visit a friend in Santa Fe; if I can scare up some camping gear I also want to go up the the Jemez Mountains -- which, now that I think about it, is where my whole photography obsession began back in 1993.