Janet Brien's photos

I am always on the lookout for anything unusual, so I was overjoyed when I found this rose at the Harry & David garden! Explored! :)

While visiting the Harry & David public garden about 6 months ago, I noticed some rose petals which had recently fallen to the ground. They didn't look like anything special, so I gave myself a challenge: find a cool image. I stared at the petals and took pictures from many angles until I finally zeroed in on this, which was a planned crop from a larger image. It would turn out to be one of my very favorite pictures from my visit! There are many reasons why it hits the spot for me, and I hope you like it too! :)

The other day I posted a picture of a pair of these lovely little flowers. Here is another picture I captured which turned out nicely! If you look carefully, you can see the pool of water in the center from the rain the night before. :)

There are ponds at the Harry & David garden, and they attract lots of waterfowl. We were so amused to find this goose on top of one of the buildings, peering down at the parking lot below. Such an odd sight!

Wandering around the Harry & David public garden, I had the opportunity to look for the little things that caught my eye. It had rained the night before and added twinkling droplets to everything which added to the beauty. I noticed this blade of grass complete with a single droplet of water poised to roll off to the ground below and it reminds me of a single tear.

These rose leaves are showing the signs of a highly-contagious disease called Black Spot. This fungus causes leave to yellow and fall off the bush and weakens it. Although it's a horrible thing to find on rose leaves, it makes for beautiful images with the variegated colors and spotting. It was unfortunate to see that Black Spot was running rampant throughout the Harry & David garden and the probably reason many bushes had been removed over the past year.

Would you just LOOK at this rose? Is it not the belle of the ball?! On top of that, the rain from the night before left behind droplets to add to the beauty of this incredibly lovely flower. What a treat to have the time to take many pictures of these blossoms at the Harry & David garden last spring! :)

This tiny beauty look almost artificially colored to me because the colors are so outrageous! Steve and I found groups of these Violas scattered here and there among the grounds at the Harry & David public garden. Getting a proper image required a lot of looking around for just the right arrangement of fore- and background flowers, but was a grand challenge that I thoroughly enjoyed. Then, I needed to scrunch down very low to get the perspective right. In the end, I got just what I was hoping for!

A lovely sherbet-colored rose from the Harry & David garden. You can see why I couldn't stop taking pictures of these! Totally stunning! Exlpored on November 26, 2016. Highest placement unknown.

[+1 one in a note above] There were a feast of flowers to appreciate at the Harry & David public garden. There were many gorgeous Foxgloves in bloom and it was fun working on this picture to make the flower pop out of the rather busy background. Explored on November 25, 2015. Highest placement unknown.

The variety of colors that roses come in totally surprised me with I visited the Harry & David public garden here in Medford. They plant many kinds of flowers but the largest number are roses. Steve and I met with our friend Andy and his daughter one day and we spent a couple of hours enjoying the show through the lenses of our cameras. This lovely rose caught my eye with its pink petals which blended to yellow, accented by crystal droplets. So pretty!

There are so many wildflowers out there that don't look like anything special until you get a close look. This is a blossom from a deadnettle flower. Such a pretty thing when you can see what it really looks like!

When Steve and I moved to southern Oregon, I knew I'd love the wildlife and nature on a rural property. But I had no idea how much fun it would be to discover all the different flowers that grew just on our property alone! I began a project which I never finished, to catalog every flower I found. This is one of the flowers to add to my project, the Lemon-Scented Tarweed! It smells like lemon but the plant is covered with sticky resin that clings to everything! I love the flowers though, and we have several varieties that grow here.

In April, Steve and I went to the Harry & David public garden, where we met up with our good friend, Andy, and his daughter. Although this garden concentrates on many kinds of roses, they also have lots of other flowers too. I don't know what these are called, but I was captivated by them and got many pictures I was happy with!

Until I became interested in macro photography, I thought that clover flowers were nothing special. I also thought there was just one kind of clover. Silly me! :D When I studied this flower up close, I was amazed at its elegant and detailed beauty. And, when I looked in my wildflower books, I was surprised to find that--just in this area alone--there are lots of different species of clover flowers! I think they are fantastic and love the opportunity to take pictures of them!

To me, there is something very cool about using a shallow depth of field for capturing certain subjects. It pulls the viewers in and forces them to look at a tiny part of the image, precisely because it's usually the only area in focus. In this case, there are two things in focus: the edge of the mushroom cap, and a blade of grass. The grass gives an indication of the mushroom's size, which is quite tiny. The edge of the mushroom reveals a fascinating amount of detail--the surface of the cap has both texture and a gloss which may be from dew or generated by the mushroom itself. The gills look a bit like teeth, and make us want to see underneath! This point of view makes it easy to think about what it might be like to be that small and in turn, this is amazing because it's such a JUNGLE! I always love the opportunity to capture a scene which will hopefully invoke thought and wonder! :)

Here is the garlic flower in full bloom, its florets opening to the warm sunshine above. Down below among the blades of drying grass lays the discarded bud covering, gone but not forgotten. Thank you for visiting my pictures and watching this show!

And finally, with the florets now spreading out and opening up, this bud covering will fall off with the next stiff breeze. It was a great experience taking pictures from start to finish, and something I'd always wanted to do!