This is a photo taken in spring 2010 right before we left for Iceland. Ottawa has a tulip festival every spring. A friend was visiting at the time, and so was my brother-in-law. The three of us decided to check out the tulip festival. The timing of the festival is supposed to coincide with the tulips being in full glory... but everything was early this year - we had flowers in our yard the second week of March! By the time the festival rolled around, most of the tulips had seen better days. That's ok... I have lots of photos of tulips in full bloom, but some of the most interesting shots come from flowers that are starting to decay.

I haven't been keeping my promise to post more often. There are a few reasons for that, I guess. The Iceland trip really spoiled me for good photo subjects. For 2 weeks, I was surrounded with some of the most interesting photo fodder in the world. Since I've been back, everything else seems mundane. Whenever I go out into the yard with the camera, I find myself staring right into the neighbors' faces and beating a quick retreat back inside. Even when work gives me a chance to venture further afield, there don't seem to be many photo opportunities around here... There are lots of lakes and such showing on the map, but when you actually attempt to visit them, there isn't any access and everything is private property -- all built up with people's cottages. There have been a few frustrating photo journeys this summer where we drove for several hours only to return with a couple of half-hearted snapshots.

We bought a canoe, and this weekend we went camping at a nearby lake where we actually did find access (although we risked life, limb and new truck to get there). I thought I would get a lot of good photos, but I didn't find anything there very inspiring. I only saw water and trees without enough contrast to separate them, and a fairly boring sky. Graem took quite a few photos (which we haven't looked at yet), so maybe it's just me.

I have been reading this book by Ansel Adams, as well as his other books: The Camera, The Print and The Negative. In the first book, he mentions that when he visited Hawaii, he was not in the least bit inspired to take any photos, despite the fact that the scenery was beautiful. Ditto with the first time he visited New Mexico, although he would go on to take many of his most recognized photos there. Not that I can compare myself to Ansel Adams, but it's good to know that even famous photographers lack inspiration at times. Actually, I have been amazed to learn that Ansel had many of the same concerns with photography as I do: blown out skies, underexposed foreground, amazing subjects that simply cannot be framed effectively. 80 years later and with digital-everything, photography hasn't changed very much at its core. I'd strongly recommend this series of Adams' books to anyone with an interest in photography.

Here's a photo taken at the botanical gardens in the spring, before the Iceland trip when my enthusiasm was fresh. I may wander over there in the next couple of days to try and get some of that enthusiasm back... Yes, it's kind of boring to always visit the same place, but the flowers are always changing and I'm guaranteed to get a few good shots.

Here's another tulip shot from the botanical gardens. Not much to say today... just getting through the few remaining days until vacation. Who knew time could move so slowly?

This is my first post in a long time. Jackie died on March 8, and I pretty much lost interest in everything, including photography and living. I also got a new computer and had to switch my photos over to the new hard drive. I have to say I'm enjoying the new system. Editing my photos is amazingly fast. I had been using a laptop with a small screen that was starting to burn out and gave everything a pink hue. I now have 2 gigantic flatscreen monitors (soon to be 3). It's great to see my photos so big, in such detail... and the color is amazing. On the downside, the bigger better screens allow me to see the flaws better. My sensor needs a good cleaning... and some of the photos that had been my favorites are embarrassingly blurry. Graem has pointed out some crooked horizons, but I'm still not able to see them as crooked. That's always been one of my biggest challenges as a photographer - getting my horizons straight.

I'm trying to get my life back in order, and I hoped to spend the last 2 weekends taking pictures. It didn't happen... Work is conspiring to wreck what remains of my life, and then last Saturday I got my compact flash card stuck in the card reader, and spent the day journeying across the city to buy a new one. I lost about 400 photos from the past 3 months, including photos from the final days of Jackie's life. This weekend has been a write-off... cold and rainy. In fact, the weather forecast tells me it's snowing now, though I don't dare to look out the window.

I did make it to the botanical gardens last Sunday, though. I got some decent tulip shots, despite the wind. I don't even think the tulips were blooming yet in Saskatoon last year at this time. Here in Ottawa, there were crocuses and daffodils blooming as early as March 18. Prairie homesickness be damned, I say! I'll try to be better about updating regularly. I don't have much time to take new photos, but I have a bunch saved from the botanical garden. May 23-June 6 we'll be vacationing in Iceland... and that should bring an entirely new breed of photography!

This Red Bubble reject is actually one of my favorite photos. Spring was very late coming to Saskatoon this year, and I thought my tulips would never bloom. When they finally popped open, it was sudden and violent.

I actually had this photo made into a print. It looks much better to me on paper than on screen.

If I find a subject that I really like to photograph, I'll usually take a few shots. Often none of them turn out, and sometimes I get one good one. Sometimes it happens that I get two or more shots of the same subject that I consider 'good' or 'postable'. If I have a few good shots of the same subject, it can be incredibly hard to decide which one gets posted... especially since this means the other shot(s), even if they are equally good, tend to get lost and buried on my hard drive where I can't always find them back later on.

A solution I've employed a few times is to post one of the shots to my blog, and one to Red Bubble. Even if the shots are both 'good', there's usually one that I secretly prefer. These shots are both recent Red Bubble Rejects. I wasn't going to post them here, as I already have a picture of the cornfield, and a picture of the caterpillar on the red and white tulip. Be that as it may, I truly think these ones are better.

When I took this photo, I was concerned that the midday sunlight was too harsh, and that there would be too much reflection on the petals. I really like the colors of this tulip, though, and the way the petals curl backwards. I'm still not really sure how much I like this photo. I change my mind every time I look at it.

Today was not a great day for flower photography. I didn't get outside until late, and the light was fairly bad. It was windy enough to make macro photos difficult. I don't think I've had such a high percentage of blurry photos since last summer, when I was pushing my point-and-shoot to its limits. Nonetheless, I couldn't resist posting this pink tulip.

Spring always comes late to the prairies, but this year it seems later than ever. We even had snow last week! I've been watching my friends from around the country and elsewhere in the world post flower pictures for a couple of months now! All of my flower photos this year had been taken at the conservatory in the Mendel Art Gallery.

My tulips have been on the verge of blooming for a few days now. I worked all day on Saturday and was afraid I would miss it. Yesterday was cold and rainy - a good day for any sane tulip to stay closed. Today it finally happened! I spent the afternoon taking tulip macros in my own backyard!