My daylilies in the backyard are starting to bloom, and they are so colorful.  I’ve been having fun with my macro lens, Photoshop, the Nik filters, and some Fractalius.  (Rich loves to tease me that I have Windows running on my Mac for almost the sole purpose of the Fractalius Photoshop filter!)  It’s fun to sit and play with angles in-camera, and then colors and effects on the computer.     I know I’m onto something interesting when I get an “oooh!” from Rich (instead of a “that’s nice.”).  We both really liked the colors and overall effect of this “daylily heart” image.

It was tricky photographing the daylily because of the tall stamens.  They kind of got in the way if I was trying to focus on the colors at the center of the flower.  I tried large apertures to blur them, then switched to tiny apertures to capture them in focus.  It was a breezy day, though, and I had to time it when the flower wasn’t waltzing in the wind.  I like how the colors radiate from the center of this flower, with a touch of Fractalius to add some interest to the stamens.

Daylilies really do just bloom for a day, and in my Florida backyard, they typically bloom just once a year in the spring.  I get excited when I start to see the scapes start to peek up from the bottom of the plant.  A week or two later, a gorgeous flower peeks out, but just for a day.  This particular daylily had a hard day.  With all the wind and a bit of rain, the petals were damaged and torn.  So I had to focus close on the pretty parts.

The daylilies aren’t the only flowers in bloom right now.  Another one of my favorites is the African Iris, which seems to be in every parking lot in Winter Garden these days.  I focused close on the flower for this next shot, then applied some Fractalius and Plastic Wrap filter in Photoshop, plus some heavy sharpening.  I would never use these techniques on my bird photos, but with flowers, sometimes wacky is fun!  (This got a “Wow” from Rich!  But I think it looks best in full resolution…)

This last image is similar to the first, but with different processing in Nik.  For the first time ever, I loved what the “Monday Morning” filter did to my image!  I feel like I’m staring into a pink tunnel.  Don’t follow the light!