Water Droplets

[best appreciated at full size against black] On the lookout for droplets one morning, I found this tiny plant which stood only about 1/2" tall, covered with itty bitty droplets! They look like miniature crystal balls, each refracting a moss plant behind it! I wonder if we will see our futures if we look into each one?! :D This image was taken in February, 2012.

[best appreciated at full size against black] If you can believe it, this darling little leaf is only about 1/4" in diameter!! I was nosing around (literally nose-close) for fun droplets to photograph and I saw these extremely tiny leaves covered with itty bitty water droplets! Aren't they cute?! It looks like a little "jazz hand"! (take a peek here for explanation! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_hands ) This image was taken in February, 2012.

[best appreciated at full size against black] I sometimes wonder if my husband should take a video of me when I am nose-close to the ground so that I can see all of the tiny plants and droplets for photo opportunities. I think you would all die laughing! I move very slowly, nosing along with my bum in the air as I creep along sideways on my trusty knee pads, trying not to destroy everything in my path. This little scene presented itself on one of my droplet-finding excursions, and it brought a big smile to my face! These plants seem to be having a tiny droplet contest, with the winner having the most droplets balanced perfectly on the tips of each leaf! And, any plant that can also show a perfect refraction of another plant in one of the droplets will be an instant winner! YAY!! WE HAVE A WINNER!!

[best appreciated at full size against black] After the rain stopped one day, I went out to see what I could find, and while hunting for mushrooms, I also kept my eyes out for sparkling webs. I nearly stepped on this one but side-stepped just in time! So many droplets! I look foreward to finding some cool backlit orb webs to capture, but this one is lovely too! I hope you like it! :) This image was taken in February, 2012.

[best appreciated at full size against black] A while back, I posted a family portrait of mushrooms on our front stairs. What you didn't know is that there were two other mushrooms that didn't want to be in the same picture! This jaunty little fellow has decided he's the Gene Kelly of mushrooms, singing in the rain with droplets all around! I invite you to watch this wonderful scene and I am sure it will bring a smile to your face! It is one of the finest singing and dancing performances in movie history! Here then, is Gene Kelly in "Singing in the Rain": www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ZYhVpdXbQ I've uploaded two other pictures today and I hope you'll visit them too! Thanks to all of you who have visited and have left comments and favorites! I try to go to all of your pages within a day or two and is a highlight for me to see your beautiful photography! :) NOTE! If you're a new visitor, I hope you'll take a look at my profile to find out a little more about me and how important all of you are to my experience here on Flickr! www.flickr.com/people/sfhipchick/ This image was taken in January, 2012.

[best appreciated at full size against black] I have decided to have a counting of each kind of flower that I find on our property this spring! I have already shown a picture of the crocus patch, but I rudely showed it out of order, so here they are again, in proper order after the first and second! Yesterday when I took the dogs up to the ridge, I was very excited to find what I thought was the fourth flower, its bud preparing to open, but I was WRONG! Today, I went back with my camera and on the way I nearly stepped on the open face of a lovely yellow buttercup! Happy clicking ensued! I will now have three new flowers to show in the next few days, and this also means that I'll have to start really nosing around! Our property is the home of at least 20-30 flowers, and I'm determined to take pictures of them all! Last year I fell in love with my Canon SX130 and then my SX30 when I discovered how well it took macros, but I hope to retake every picture with my new camera, and with a year of experience to help me do a better job! Wish me luck! :) For now, I hope you like my "Sea of Crocus" shot to ring in Flower #3! :) I've uploaded two other pictures today and I hope you'll visit them too! Thanks to all of you who have visited and have left comments and favorites! I try to go to all of your pages within a day or two and is a highlight for me to see your beautiful photography! :) NOTE! I have finally updated my profile and I hope you'll take a look to find out a little more about me and how important all of you are to my experience here on Flickr! www.flickr.com/people/sfhipchick/ This image was taken in February, 2012.

SPECIAL AWARD NOTICE!!! I am very proud to share First Place in Natural Jewelry's droplet contest! 24 incredible images, and this image tied for first place and is on the group's front page!! I'm so happy!!! :) :) :) www.flickr.com/groups/natural_jewellery/ This image is dedicated to my dear Flickr friend Nadia! www.flickr.com/photos/67040808@N03/ This amazing lady was so inspired by one of my pictures that she painted it, and this beautiful watercolor is displayed on her photostream right now! I am so touched by this gesture, I hardly know what to say, but I have been floating on air all day, and this picture makes me think of her! Thank you so much, Nadia!! We are really starting to see the signs of spring around here! It's so exciting to me!! I have my new camera, my 100mm macro lens, and I am ready to ROCK THIS PROPERTY! :D What a wonderful sight to see these beautiful crocuses popping up through the grass. In years past, I've missed seeing them until they'd come and gone and lay wilted in a sad pile. However, this year I had my eyes wide open every day, looking for them, and HERE THEY ARE!! YAY!!!

[best appreciated at full size against black] Ever since I was a little kid, I've been crazy about vining plants that have tendrils. I love how they snake their way around whateve is close by, grab hold, and climb higher and higher. We have peavines on our property, so I was on the lookout to find them popping out of the ground and getting ready for spring. Have you noticed that every single macro subject has a different "sweet spot" for focus? I find this very interesting, but it does take time to learn what I should be focusing on. In this case, I started out focusing on the tendril, but the rest of the leaf fell out of focus too fast. If I focused just on the leaf, I lost the tendril. With an F-stop set too high, the background got too clear and distracting. It took me several attempts over a couple of days before I was able to get an image that I was happy with, but I learned so much! I hope you like this too! :) I've uploaded two other pictures today and I hope you'll visit them too! Thanks to all of you who have visited and have left comments and favorites! I try to go to all of your pages within a day or two and is a highlight for me to see your beautiful photography! :) NOTE! I have finally updated my profile and I hope you'll take a look to find out a little more about me and how important all of you are to my experience here on Flickr! www.flickr.com/people/sfhipchick/ This image was taken in February, 2012.

[best appreciated at full size against black] Don't you just love happy accidents? Many of the world's best inventions came about because of an unplanned event. Photography works this way too! I can't tell you how many times I've taken a macro picture and found something unplanned on my computer when I looked at the image! In this case, I'd taken our ring flash along for a photo shoot, and when I found a lovely spider web drenched after a morning rain, I began taking pictures. After a few shots, I looked at my LCD monitor and noticed that the pictures were very dark. "Hmm," I thought to myself...why are these so dark??" *light bulb over head lights up* Mumbling one of my favorite idiot-check questions that Steve loves to say, "Is the O-F-F/O-N switch in the O-N position?" *looks at flash attachment power position* "Why, no! No, it's not!" *turns on the flash attachment* :D :D :D "Now, where was I?!" After I uploaded my pictures to my computer, I was in the process of tossing these images when I stopped and thought, "Why not take a glance before you throw them away?" Because you never know. And I'm really glad I did because this one actually turned out very nicely! I'll be posting the well-lit flash version in a few days you'll be surprised at how different they look! This image was taken in February, 2012.

[best appreciated at full size against black] The other day I posted an image called Happy Accident: Water Pearls in a Web ( www.flickr.com/photos/sfhipchick/6951135961/in/photostream/ ) where I didn't have my flash setup turned on but I got an unexpected happy result. Here is the image I had actually planned on! To be honest, this was my second attempt taking a picture like this. The first attempt was really more of an experiment. Do you ever just try things out to see how it will turn out? I do this all the time because I've learned that more often than not, it works out well...if it's not quite right, it might be if I tweaked the idea, and then it would make a cool shot! In this case, the first time around I tried to take a picture of a droplet-covered web at the end of a stump and was hoping to get the whole web in focus. However, there wasn't enough light and the shutter was open long enough that just the action of pressing the shutter release created blur. I didn't see the blur until I had the images on my computer. When I saw the attempts on my computer, I noticed that my depth of field was never great enough to keep everything in focus...but...the droplets that blurred out into bokeh actually looked much better than if they'd been clear. So the next time I went out for droplet shots, I went prepared with my flash setup, I set my camera on a 2-second timer, and I tried again! I took a series of images in many aperatures so I could choose how much blur I wanted. I picked this one because the "string of pearls" on the edge of the web are all crisp, and then immediately begin blurring out, yet they maintain enough shape that you can see what they are. I hope you like it! :) I've uploaded two other pictures today and I hope you'll visit them too! Thanks to all of you who have visited and have left comments and favorites! I try to go to all of your pages within a day or two and is a highlight for me to see your beautiful photography! :) NOTE! If you're a new visitor, I hope you'll take a look at my profile to find out a little more about me and how important all of you are to my experience here on Flickr! www.flickr.com/people/sfhipchick/ This image was taken in February, 2012.

[best appreciated at full size against black] Back in February, an explosion of pearly white crocus erupted out of the ground in our garden and created an amazing display for me to enjoy and take pictures of. Here is a macro showing the crocus stigma. I've uploaded two other pictures today and I hope you'll visit them too! Thanks to all of you who have visited and have left comments and favorites! I try to go to all of your pages within a day or two and is a highlight for me to see your beautiful photography! :) NOTE! I have finally updated my profile and I hope you'll take a look to find out a little more about me and how important all of you are to my experience here on Flickr! Janet's Profile (sfhipchick) This image was taken in March, 2012.

[best appreciated at full size against black] It's been raining a lot these days, so I have to bounce out the door whenever I get the chance! The other day when I was getting mail by our front gate, I paused when I noticed a bush that seemed to sparkle at me. Looking closer, the bare stems were covered with brand new leaves popping out at all the tips!! And every one was adorned with tiny, perfect globes of water! I didn't have my camera with me, but the next break in the rain, I made a beeline for that bush and look at who I found waiting for me!! This sweetheart has two big ears, a big and little eye full of joy, and a happy smile on his face as he says, "O HAI!! WELCOME TO MY BUSH!!" Steve and I tried to decide on what animal this little guy looks like...half Kermit the Frog and half mouse? What do you think?! :D What fun it is to find animals and faces in the plants and flowers that I find!! I've uploaded two other pictures today and I hope you'll visit them too! Thanks to all of you who have visited and have left comments and favorites! I try to go to all of your pages within a day or two and is a highlight for me to see your beautiful photography! :) NOTE! I have finally updated my profile and I hope you'll take a look to find out a little more about me and how important all of you are to my experience here on Flickr! www.flickr.com/people/sfhipchick/ This image was taken in March, 2012.

[best appreciated at full size against black] A few weeks back, I was making my way up one of our seasonal streams, listening to the peaceful sound of water and enjoying how tranquil it was there. I was also looking around for neat things to take pictures of, when a bunch of tiny sparkles caught my eye. Coming closer, I saw this row of droplets on a blade of grass and hoped the darkness of our lower forest would look pretty in the background! This image was taken in March, 2012.

This is a last shot in a series of images I took of a dead philidendron leaf I found on one of our houseplants. As I was about to throw it away, I realized it would be a beautiful subject to photograph. When I washed the dust off, I was surprised to see how beautifully the water beaded on the surface, and took several pictures which I've shown in my stream over the last couple of months (below I will post the other pictures I took) I thought it might be nice to try turning the image into a sepia tone and was very pleased at the result! I hope you like it too! Explored on June 16, 2012, placement at #48

[best appreciated at full size against black] We have a plant in our livingroom which has very large, beautiful green leaves, but the other day I found a dead leaf, which I pulled off. As I walked to the trash can, it occurred to me, "HELLO...you're holding a very cool leaf! Let's wash the dust off and take some texture and abstract shots!!" When I turned on the faucet and began cleaning the leaf, I was surprised as how nicely it repelled water, causing the droplets to form perfect globes. Here is one of my pictures, converted to black and white for a dramatic effect! I hope you like it! :) This image was taken in March, 2012.

[best appreciated at full size against black] This is another droplet shot that I took a few weeks ago. I found a dying leaf on one of our house plants and realized it would make a wonderful subject to photograph. When I went to wash the dust off, I found myself exclaiming, "WOW!!", as the water pouring onto the leaf turned into pearls before my eyes. I hope you like this image as much as I do, I think it's my favorite of the group! :) I've uploaded two other pictures today and I hope you'll visit them too! Thanks to all of you who have visited and have left comments and favorites! I try to go to all of your pages within a day or two and is a highlight for me to see your beautiful photography! :) NOTE! I have finally updated my profile and I hope you'll take a look to find out a little more about me and how important all of you are to my experience here on Flickr! www.flickr.com/people/sfhipchick/ This image was taken in April, 2012.

[best appreciated at full size against black] How in the world did I forget about this collage? I'd been putting this together back in January and then put it aside for some reason...and forgot about it! EEK! A week or so ago, I was looking through my staggering numbers of photo folders when I found this file! I had some pictures that were too small for my regular finished size but I thought they were too pretty to not show, so I put them together into this collage! The only thing I had left to do with the picture was to add the text at the bottom, so here it is! :D These images were taken in January, 2012.

Our amazing display of daffodils and jonquils was so pretty that I found myself taking endless pictures of them! Who can resist such perfect flowers?! Here is a close-up of a jonquil's beautiful face right after a spring shower!