A varied collection, er, potpourri of photos

Today's post is another that helps explain why I picked the name of this blog. I'm pleased to present a montage, er, a cornucopia, er, a collection ... er, ah ... a potpourri of photographs, this one encompassing a grasshopper, some crepe myrtle trees, tomatoes and a cucumber and crepe myrtle foliage.

My lawnmower is on the fritz (hopefully temporarily; I'm waiting for some replacement parts to arrive that hopefully will get it back to working order soon), so I hired a high school youth to do the mowing yesterday.

While the young man worked, Lee Ann and I were lingering on the backyard deck, and she noticed a grasshopper anchored on one of the ledges of the deck in the back of the house. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me. In fact, I had the camera up in the office -- out of the bag and ready to shoot -- because I've been hoping to see a couple of colorful birds -- cardinals and an oriole -- return to the sun room roof.

I dashed into the house, ran up the stairs to the office and grabbed my camera (Canon 6D fixed with my Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L lens and 1.4x adapter) then ran back to the deck. To my surprise, the grasshopper was still there. So ... I began shooting away.

My first several shots were taken using f/4, the widest available on the lens with the 1.4x adapter attached. Hence, I was noticing I wasn't getting much clarity or sharpness beyond the insect's head. The photo leading off the post is one of those pictures. I then moved to a different angle and stopped down to f/7.1, getting deeper sharpness and detail as you can tell in the photo immediately below.

I hadn't shot with the 70-200mm lens for a while, and I didn't want to stop just yet. So after photographing the grasshopper, I strolled over to the raised garden beds and took some shots of the tomatoes and a cucumber (the tomatoes are still thriving; the cucumbers seem to be ebbing). Those photos appear immediately below.

Yeah, nothing really super spectacular there, but ... I hadn't presented any garden shots in the blog lately, so now I have that base covered.

After a few minutes taking those pictures, I noticed the bright red blooms on a red crepe myrtle tree -- not the pink-petaled one that I see from my my office window -- and captured some frames of it as well as the lilac-colored blooms on another bush nearby. I don't know the species of the bush, but I will note that 15 or so years ago, one of the original owners of this property made a point to landscape his yard with a very diverse amount and number of plants, bushes and trees ... to the point that there's almost something in bloom every season of the year. The pictures of the crepe myrtle and lilac-colored bloom appear immediately below.

I conclude this post below with a solitary shot I took three days ago from my office window, looking at the foliage on the aforementioned pink-petaled crepe myrtle tree. I wasn't focusing on the petals here, although you can see some of the dropped ones sprinkled amid the dappled sunlight on the rooftop. I simply was admiring the foliage.