A Photo a Day by Bill Heller

Purple Photos
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Saturday, December 1, 2007

Painted Orchids

 This is another one of my low depth of field experiments. I really like the way it helps you focus on one flower, but you can still see the others fading into the background. The lighting was something special on this one too. It was in a nursuy in Carpenteria, CA. The roof of the building we were in was translucent. It let the sun through, but the light was filtered and beautiful.

 
Monday, October 22, 2007

Garlic Reflections

 In addition to my local Santa Barbara images site I am in the process of doing some self promotion work for my commercial food & restaurant photography. I've always loved photography and I REALLY love food, so I guess it was only a matter of time 'til I made the connection!

Ohhh I just LOVE Garlic!!

 
Friday, October 19, 2007

Harbor Earth Shadow

 I really love this shot and all the others I took along with it. It was a great evening right after a Photography show walking with my dad at the Santa Barbara harbor.

Aside from the beauty of the scene and the great memories it brings back (as most of my photos do for me), I like the science in this shot. If you poke around the photo of the day it's not hard to notice other evidence of the left side of my brain creeping into my photography. In this case, the dark blue near the horizon that slopes upward to the left is what intrigues me. It is actually the shadow of the Earth. As the sun was slipping further below the horizon behind me on my right side, it still lit the atmosphere above me. It is easiest to see this effect looking out over the ocean so there are no hills or even buildings and trees to block it.

BTW, I finally got back to the photo of the day thanks to a really nice post the other day from Mary Ann. Always wonderful to know people are enjoying my creativity. One of the many things I was doing in my absence was working on a new gallery site of my Santa Barbara photos... www.ImagesOfSantaBarbara.com.

Thanks again Mary Ann!

 
Sunday, May 13, 2007

Purple Geranium Flowers

 Geranium maderense Full PlantThis looks like a field of purple flowers. But they are actually all on the same plant. This is the top of a "Geranium maderense" it is a wild plant that has big leaves on long stems with a large spherical inflorescence of these beautiful purple flowers (as you can see at the right).

The plant is a biennial, the first year you only see the interesting leaves. The flowers (and resulting seeds) come the second year. After that the plant usually dies. Fortunately, it re-seeds easily and can even have pups come up from the roots.

Unfortunately this guy was not for sale, he was just the display plant. But I did bring home his little brother. :-D This, and a VERY cool Ginkgo bonsai tree are the reasons I waited to get yesterday's cactus at the succulent show!
 
Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Batik Bearded Iris

 This Iris has not bloomed for years. It took us a while to get it settled in to our new back yard. This is the first blossom of what looks like will be a busy spring for it. The last time it bloomed, I got a great photo that was part of my first solo show at the Santa Barbara Public Library.

We are very happy to see it coming around, they are not the easiest things to find. For several years you could not buy them anywhere.

I always thought the little fuzzy area looked like a yellow caterpillar.

 
Thursday, February 22, 2007

Backlit Morning Daisy

 Even in the middle of winter there are beautiful flowers to photograph here. That's not to say it is not cold. The day after I took this was the windiest coldest day of the winter so far. But fortunately the ocean seems to keep things just warm enough for things to survive. Even if we get frost it is usually mild and patchy.

Aside from these tough daisies, the Calla Lilies are starting to really put on a show now too. Some of our spring bulbs are already coming up that we planted in the fall. So many beautiful subjects! So little time!

 
Thursday, February 15, 2007

Mallow After the Rain

 This was taken right after yesterday's photo of the day. The rain had just stopped and the sun came out beautifully. This shot is looking up at a couple of exceptionally tall branches of our small potted Mallow tree. The drops of water are actually on the other side, the top of the flower. It would probably be a good idea for us to prune it. But it blooms constantly and if we had pruned it I would not have had the opportunity to get this shot.

 
Sunday, January 21, 2007

Still Sleeping

 When normal people go on vacation they sleep in. Then you have me and my hound dog. Miss hound seems to like to get up early when we are in a different place. Maybe because she knows that is when I get some of my best pictures. Or, maybe she's excited to go out and smell what there is to smell. (She has long since sniffed all there is to sniff at home.) At any rate, she woofs and since she has me wrapped around her cute little paw, we get up and go out. When this started I was not very happy about it, but I have learned that there will usually be a number of beautiful images that reveal themselves during our morning constitutional.

I would write more, but Zoe is sitting by the door right now. She is trying to remind me there is more to life than sitting in front of the strange glowing, humming box.

 
Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Mallow

 A couple of years ago when we were in Monterey for my birthday The Hound walked me by this beautiful bush. When we got home my wife found one at Home Depot and we have it in the back yard now. Now that we are visiting Monterey again I had to see if my favorite spots were still there. As you can see it is still as happy as ever, even with the strange weather these days!

 
Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Daisy in the Morning Dew

 This is another photo credit for The Hound. There is no other reason I would be up early taking a walk when everything is cold and dew covered. She always leads me to nice photos though so she is worth it.

 
Saturday, December 9, 2006

Costa Rican Butterfly Vine

 Now there's somthin' ya don't see every day! Well, unless you have one of these vines in your front yard.

This one is growing in a garden center near Santa Barbara. It's pretty wild!

 
Friday, September 22, 2006

Rebel Cyclamen

 A few months ago we put some new plants in near our front door. Among them were a few white Cyclamen and one purple one. The Purple one was right next to this white plant but it did not seem to do so well. There is not much left of it above ground But it has managed to make it's presence known. (they are tubers, so hopefully it is still down there)

These plants are interesting and beautiful anyway. The flower is actually pointing down and the petals turn around and point up. (called "reflexed petals") But this little addition has made this one of the more interesting plants in the front yard at the moment!

 
Thursday, July 20, 2006

Serendipity

 It is really interesting to me to see the motion in this shot. The bee is actually leaning into the turn like a bike rider.

I was framing up the shot of the flower when the bee flew in from the left. She made a beautiful arc into the photo and I hit the shutter release as many times as I could!

 
Friday, April 28, 2006

Purple Coral Pea

 We actually went looking for these pretty little flowers. My wife remembered seeing them but she was not sure where. We found them, of all places, climbing the side of one of the grocery stores we go to regularly.

They are called Purple Coral Peas and "violacea" means violet but apparently they come in pink and white too.
 
Saturday, April 22, 2006

Little Purple Mums

 Our next-door neighbors have a little girl that is just old enough to wander down the sidewalk with her grandpa. On a number of occasions we have seen her wander over to these flowers and examine them very closely. She seems to really appreciate the structure of them. I have never seen her grab them like you would expect of a small child. She seems to really love them and I can see why! Maybe she'll be a photographer when she grows up!

They were not the easiest things to identify though. They seem to be some type of mum, closest we could find was Chrysanthemum frutescens 'Vancouver'.

 
Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Spring Starflower

 Another shot from Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens. I like the way the petals on this flower alternate, three on top and three on the bottom. Looking it up online was quite an adventure, apparently it has about five different names. [Tristagma uniflorum] [Milla uniflora] [Triteleia uniflora] [Brodiaea uniflora]

 
Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Purple Calla Lilies

 It's been cloudy and rainy lately but there was some nice sun this weekend. Was a good time to see all the flowers out for spring. These were in a big display at Home Depot. That place is almost like a botanical garden.

 
Monday, March 20, 2006

Mallow Drops

 Last year after a nice trip to Monterey I posted a beautiful photo of a Sea Tree Mallow. I loved it so much that we went out and found a tree at Home Depot. This is a blossom on that tree during a recent rainstorm.

 
Monday, March 13, 2006

Purple Fuzzy!

 A.K.A. Hummingbird Lunch!

The hummers really love this bush and if it tastes half as good as it looks I can understand why!

 
Sunday, March 12, 2006

Purple Daisies

 My muse took me for a walk yesterday and we found some beautiful daisies that don't seem to mind the sub 40° F night time temperatures right now.

 
Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Cosmos Texture

 So, I'm pretty sure I took this one it looks like the kind of photo I would take but to be fair my wife :-D and I were trading the camera back and forth that day and I just scanned the roll. Either way, its a beautiful image and it is an interesting contrast to the Cosmos I took recently with a Digital camera.

 
Thursday, February 2, 2006

Purple flower

 The light is perfect on this beautiful flower, the angle brings out the texture of the petals. But, the Internet failed me on this one! I was not able to identify it. I'll keep lookin'.

 
Saturday, December 17, 2005

Cosmos

 So before I took the digital camera back (Canon EOS 20D) I thought I would really see how it compared to my trusty AE-1 and Velvia. I took it through some of my favorite situations, unfortunately it was a hazy day so the lighting was not the greatest. Then again, if it was perfect conditions that wouldn't make for a very interesting test would it?

This is the result of my flower close-up test, I'm pretty happy with it! And, of course, I already know it preforms nicely in low light with a moving subject.

I did, however, find a couple of weaknesses. Velvia is much more forgiving in high contrast environments, especially right into the sun. (Yes yes, I know, "don't take pictures into the sun". but that's something they just tell amateur photographers so they don't get frustrated) :-D     I do, however believe I would be able to overcome this limitation to a certain extent with a little more practice with the camera's finer controls.

The really interesting thing I found was the reloads. I liked not having to reload film, and I was dreaming about 4 Gig CF cards. Then the reality hit me. It is not the Card that runs out first, its the battery! I could not fill up the one gig card without killing the battery (and that's without the built-in flash). The only saving grace was the fact that the battery charged quickly. I assume it is the auto-focus that killed it so fast, and I can do without that in many situations so it is not a deal breaker. But this is an important bit of information for anyone trying to prepare for a long shoot, you have to invest in as many batteries as CF cards.

Lastly, I love the saturation of Velvia. But that is more personal preference. I would imagine that I may be able to compensate a bit for this too with enough experience with the camera. But I felt like my landscape and architecture shots were a little flat.

In the end, I am convinced this would be a worthy tool to add to my bag of tricks. I loved using it, and I believe it has some real strengths. But, as with everything, you have to choose the right tool for the job and in many situations that is still gonna be my AE-1.

(BTW Cosmos is from the Greek "Kosmos" meaning ornament.)

 
Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Purple Daisy Shadows

 I like the shadows on the rock, they are as interesting as the flowers themselves.

 
Thursday, December 8, 2005

Purple Daisies

 I like the petals of the flowers in the middle, the ones that are sticking toward the camera. They are at just the right angle to poke up into the plain of focus, so their tips are in focus. But the flowers themselves fade into the background because of the wide open aperture.

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