Winging It

Each year, I set goals for my photographer self.

In 2011, my goal was to get some pictures of hummingbirds. You can see the results in the post Hum Along with Me from that fall.

In 2012, I set two goals. The first was to stretch my hummingbird goal--and get some photos of them flying; most specifically, I was trying to get a hummingbird, in flight, but not at a feeder. And the second goal was to photograph a butterfly in the air.

I did manage to get some great hummer photos; I'll share them in a future post. In the end, they were rather easy--at least compared to trying to capture butterflies in flight.

Below are my attempts--and I don't feel I actually achieved my goal. Of course there's always next year. But on a cold grey winter day, even less than perfect pictures of butterflies and flowers and green, green grass sure do look purty. (And if you'd like to look at some of the butterflies-at-rest pictures I've taken in the last two summers, you can find them in the 2012 post Flying Flowers or the 2011 post Great Spangled Fritillary!)

In attempting to perform this elusive feat, I learned a little bit about butterfly photography. First of all, the little buggers are skittish, particularly when large shadowy things move nearby. That's easy to understand; large shadowy things (think birds) eat butterflies. And from a butterfly's perspective, if you're a human, you are a large shadowy thing--and you might as well be a predator. They're not going to stop and ponder the situation. So you have to move slowly around them, or they flitter away.

Of course, if you're trying to catch a butterfly on the wing, flittering away ain't such a bad thing. Except butterflies are also quite small, and therefore hard to see through the camera viewfinder.

So you need a telephoto lens.

But if you ever watch how a butterfly actually flies, you'll epitomize the word "erratic." No straight lines here. Nothing like the cooperative hummingbirds who sometimes hover in place and allow you to focus for a half second. Butterfly flight is more like...well, you know when you play pinball and your ball gets into that magical part of the machine where it pings around and back and forth and up and down, bouncing on bands and walls and lights and bars? And you rack up all kinds of crazy points? That's kind of like it, except that butterflies do it in three dimensions. And you don't get any points.

This explains why my first attempts resulted in blurry blobs of unrecognizable butterfly.  Either I couldn't focus fast enough, or the spot auto focus was in the wrong place, or I was trying to move the camera to follow the butterfly--and failed completely.

An out-of-focus Cabbage Butterfly.

Two Monarchs, too far away.

Well, at least some of the flowers were in focus.

Autofocus thought I was taking pictures of Lilah. The butterfly is that yellow blur on the lower right part of the picture.

Pretty flowers, blurry Swallowtail.

Trying to follow the erratic flight path of a butterfly isn't easy.

I eventually figured out that the best way to attempt to capture a flying butterfly on (virtual) film, was not to try and follow it as it flew, but instead to focus on an imaginary plane where I thought a butterfly would fly, set the lens at a wider angle, and when one of those flittery creatures flew in the general direction, just start snapping away.

My pictures improved a bit, but my subjects were still often slightly out of focus. Or they didn't cooperate by staying in the frame.

Missed it! (It's an Orange Sulfur.)

But then, as I started getting better photos, I began to really see how butterfly wings work. And they don't just flap nicely, in concert. There are four parts to their wings, and they move differently. So I might have a butterfly in focus, but the moment I captured shows some really awkward wing positions.

This Eastern Swallowtail was heading toward the flower, with its wings flapping forward.

Another one caught on the down flap.

Awkward wings.

 

And more awkward wings.

And sometimes I would capture the creatures at odd angles, such as flying straight toward me.

Comin' at ya...

Flying away from me, this swallowtail makes a lovely V shape, but it doesn't make a great picture.

Coming? Going?

Two Swallowtails could have been really cool, but they're at a very strange angle.

Stealth bomber?

 

This Monarch looks like it was poorly photoshopped into the picture.

I also realized that a picture of a butterfly out of context, that is, away from it's food source of pretty flowers, looks kind of lonely.

Lonely butterfly

This Monarch is just a little too far from the butterfly bush, but if I cropped out the butterfly bush flowers, the picture would be boring.

And I discovered that a picture of a butterfly flying away from flowers didn't tell the right story.

Don't like what's on the menu?

The nectar must be better at another establishment.

And then I realized that when you try to take a picture of a butterfly near flowers, you can't really tell that it's flying. Many of the pictures of butterflies flying that are in focus look like they aren't flying, but have landed on a flower.

Two butterflies: awesome! But you can't really tell that the guy on the left is flying, and hadn't landed yet.

The Firey Skipper on the bottom is flying upwards, but because there is a second skipper, it's hard to tell what's happening here.

And sometimes, flowers, leaves or branches get in the way at the wrong time.

The blur over the top right part of the picture is from a blossom that was in the way, but very close to me.

And of course, as in any photo, sometimes the composition is off, or the lighting isn't quite right.

In the end, I came close, but didn't really get that perfect shot. I know I took hundreds of pictures, probably more like thousands. There are a few that I like, but I never took one that made me say, "Ah, that's what I was looking for."

A tiny fraction of the photos downloaded to my laptop.

There's always next summer. Until then, these will have to do.

This is pretty, but the Monarch is just a little too far away from the flowers.

This American Lady is just a little out of focus.

This is one of my favorites, although the butterfly isn't really in focus. It looks like one of the lilies escaped.

The silhouette makes an interesting picture, but I want a photo with more color.

Another one of my favorites; my Facebook friends will recognize this from my page. Even though the butterfly is out of focus, it captures a nice moment.

Flower Power

Last fall, I expanded my perennial garden bed. Early in the spring, I began to fill it in and now my perennials grow the entire length of my fenced-in back yard. Plus, there are other beds, next to my house, around my deck, an entire shade garden, next to my shed.

Blame the profusion of posies on the deer. For many years, I planted everything that was labeled "deer proof" or "deer resistant. Funny, the deer didn't seem to read the same guides I did. For so long after I moved into our house, the only plants that weren't eaten were my butterfly bushes. And forsythia, daffodils and cat mint. That's all. Everything else was Bambi fodder. The deer ate holly. Holly! With sharp, pointy edges.

Mind you, we do have a fenced-in back yard. Keeps the dogs in. But the deer merely laughed as they jumped into my garden of eatin'. Don't start imagining that they needed a running start to clear a 4-foot fence. It was like they were on springs. First they're outside, looking in, maybe two feet away. And then, Sproing! they're inside.

So, I bought bunches of pots and dedicated myself to container gardening on the deck.
(More on that in a future post.)

And then we got the deer fence. And I could plant whatever my little heart desired.

I think the years of pent-up garden frustration resulted in my going just a little wild. Now that I can plant, I do. And while there are some parts of my yard that are tidy and organized and landscaped, my perennials are allowed almost free reign. So they go a little crazy. And I love it.

So does my inner photographer. I spend almost as much time taking pictures of whatever is blooming as I do photographing my dogs and cats.

Almost.

What follows are just a few representatives of my garden photography hobby. All the pictures are from this year's garden.

I like my garden a little wild. My rustic fence is composed entirely of sticks gathered from my yard and woods. It helps create a visual barrier so the dogs don't run amok through my plants.

For the most part, the "fence" keeps Tucker, Lilah and Jasper out. Unless there are deer on the other side of the real fence. Or squirrels. Or birds. Or the neighbor. But we're working on it. If I see the dogs running toward my plants, I call out, "Not in the garden!" and they usually stop and gallop back to me, where they get Mucho Treats.

These two azaleas were so chewed up when we first moved in that I thought they would give up and die. I could never spray enough Deer Out (which does work, by the way, when sprayed often enough) to keep the deer from snacking on them. After the deer fence was installed, these beauties have come alive.

Lily of the Valley: an early spring bloomer. I have these planted several places in my front and back yards. These are extra special because they came from my mom's yard. And, they are one other plant the deer don't eat.

Mountain laurel is on the list of deer-resistant plants--the list the deer don't read.

A large bee--and a tiny one--share space on a blanket flower.

This astilbe has made me into a white flower fan. It just about glows in the dark. I think somewhere I will create a garden with just white flowers.

Another white beauty: Dutch iris. These flowers don't mind wet feet from soggy soil, so I try to plant them where the water tends to puddle.

I got this Asiatic lily from Walmart, believe it or not.

Another Asiatic lily; I'm not normally a fan of orange, but these are so vibrant, they add a bright note to my garden.

Blue is one of the most difficult colors to find in a flower. Unless you're a hydrangea with the right soil pH.

Mountain bluet also shows a shade of blue; other varieties feature different colors.

The buds of the mountain bluet remind me of pineapples.

There are a few shady spots in my perennial bed; this is where my ferns and hostas are happiest. This hosta has huge, thick leaves, and is one of the first to bloom.

Even though hostas are grown for their beautiful leaves and shade-loving attitude, their flowers--on tall spikes--are usually a soft shade of lavender.

Having culled just a few pictures from my many, many, many, I realize I have more than can be enjoyed in one post, so stay tuned...more to come.

Finding Flowers in the Forest

When I was growing up, I lived across the street from a small patch of woods that was part of a local park. The park itself was, at most, a five-minute walk from my home. It was my favorite place.

Very few people walked the paths in the part of the forest where I wandered. I knew kids would go there; beer bottles and some trash appeared now and again; it was somewhat obvious that there were areas that served as teen hangouts. But I never actually encountered any of these folks, and  the place nearly always was empty of humans. It felt as my own.

As others before me have said way better than I ever could, I went to the woods to seek solace.

I could sit in the quarry--a rocky area within the forest that was never actually quarried, I'm sure--for hours. I saw may apples and skunk cabbage, and watched insects. I remember being thrilled when a ground hog came ambling through. I let birdsong enter my consciousness.

Many years later, when I was able to purchase my first house, one of the most important aspects of the location was that it be in walking distance to at least a patch of woods, if not an entire parkful or forest. And when we moved into our current home, I felt like I had my own little bit of heaven, since about 1 1/2 acres of our property is woods that are almost contiguous with several hundred acres of wooded county parkland.

I still am in love with my forest; I walk it whenever I can, nearly always with camera in hand. And perhaps because of my early love affair with the woods, I see many things in our small area as I traverse the barely distinguishable path that we've gently crafted.

Sometimes I take the dogs when I walk in the woods, but not if I plan to take pictures or look for wildlife. The pups love it when I take them, of course--so many interesting smells and sounds.

Come walk with me and I'll show you some of what I see. In today's post, I feature just some of the amazing diversity of plants and flowers. I don't know the names of all of them, but that doesn't impinge on my appreciation.  All of the pictures below were taken over the course of just a few days this month. The forest never stands still; there is always something new to discover.

To get to the wooded part of our property, you need to go through a gate. The deer fencing we've put up ensures that the plentiful deer get to stay in their neighborhood, and I get to have a perennial garden. A wildflower of some sort (surely others would call it a "weed" greets you at the edge of the gate.

Just outside the gate, more of the same flowers grow. Several types of wildflowers grow here; on the edge of the woods, these plants receive a little more sunlight than those deeper within.

Many wild violets grow in the forest. These wind up in my perennial garden as well, and I let them stay, as their purple blooms offer early color.

Probably another "weed," this yellow flower seems elegant and simple. I have yet to identify everything in the woods; sometimes I think it's better that way; I get to enjoy something just because it exists, not because I know it's name.

I'm pretty sure this is wild honeysuckle, a New Jersey native. This also appears in my perennial garden, where I transplant is along my fence to create a living border.

Sometimes things are interesting simply because of where they are. Here, seedlings of some sort found a lovely natural planter in fallen log.

When woody vines fall die back or fall, they leave curvy patterns for the eye to discover.

Shelf lichen adorns a tree. Sometimes you'll encounter a whole trunkful.

And other times, just one nearly encircling a sapling.

Sometimes you discover that what you thought were different plants were really the same species at different life stages. I thought this little seedling was adorable; the colors unusual and quite decorative.

Here's another version--maybe a year or two older. I've always thought it fascinating that early spring is a preview of fall; young leaves sprout in the same autumnal colors before they turn green.

Same plant, a few years older. Gorgeous little yellow flowers--and lots of pointy thorns. Pretty now, but you can't walk through a bunch of these bushes without a long-sleeved jacket and pants for protection against scratches.

It's not all about color either. These are Jack in the Pulpits. Another New Jersey native, these don't bloom until they are several years old.

I am such a fan of ferns. I love how they unfurl in the spring. Along with the Jack in the Pulpits, I have transplanted several ferns to my front yard, in an attempt to include native plants in my landscape beds. It looks like they're coming up this year, which makes me quite happy.

Flowering trees also make an appearance in the woods. Here a native sweet crabapple blooms. I like seeing these in the woods and knowing they provide an early source of pollen for bees and fruit for birds and squirrels later in the season.

I think my favorite wildflowers are spring beauties. Each year, more grow in our woods, adding lovely pink accents throughout the forest flower. I've tried to transplant these to our front yard beds as well, with limited success.

A closer view of spring beauties. They seem to have a color range, with some featuring a showier, more vibrant pink.

Since the dogs aren't with me when I take my photo tours of the woods, there is always some kind of welcoming committee waiting for me at the gate when I come back.  And usually, hoping that they get to come with me next time.

At the gate: Lilah, Jasper and Tucker waiting for my return from the woods.

In my next post, I'll feature some of the wildlife I encounter on walks in the forest. While there are plenty of nocturnal creatures that I'm not expert enough to capture in a photograph (opossums, raccoons, flying squirrels, skunks and owls to name a few) and other animals who are a little shy (such as foxes), there are still plenty to see.