CHAPTER 9Tulips from the home garden

In fall 2006, I created a modest-sized circular garden in my backyard on the Southside of Indianapolis, I and planted some tulips in it. 

The first spring’s blooms (2007) surprised and pleased me, although I was so new at gardening, I think I would have been gleeful about anything that had come up. Even if it had been roses!

I had red and white tulips in the garden (several years later, I put in a blend of orange-purple tulips that really delighted me.). So I did a shoot of the tulips on April 22, 2007. 

A few years later, I would tinker with several monochrome colors and found myself fascinated with the color blue. I made a blue version of one of the pictures of white tulips I had taken that day. I really liked the result and decided to submit it among my contributions for display in the Indiana Photographic Society’s 2011 annual Through the Lens members’ exhibit at the Garfield Park Arts Center. 

Leading off this chapter is a copy of that photo. I did considerable tinkering with the image in post-processing. For one, I darkened the background (I’ll present copies of the original below). Then I tried several different crops and minimized highlights to cull more detail in the petals. And finally, I applied the blue monochrome filter, experimenting with several shades and intensities before settling upon this one.

The rest of the images here also were taken that day using my Canon 30D and, I think, my Canon 18-55mm variable aperture lens. Within a year of the shoot, I would purchase a Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro lens, but I'm pretty sure I didn't have it to use for the 2007 shoot of the tulips. 

In future years, I expanded my flower plantings and included images from those gardens in post-launch blog posts.

The original composition appears above. I then applied a crop (first photo below) to eliminate everything below the black (shaded) horizontal line. I then converted the image to traditional monochrome (black-and-white) and painted the background black  (second photo below). Next up, I applied the blue tint monochrome filter (third photo below) and played with the saturation. I didn't like this intensity, so I pulled back on the color and settled on the version leading off the post. For the final version (the one leading off the post), I also use an eraser tool to remove the white dot in the middle of the petal on the far right. 

Above and below are different perspectives of the same red tulip in the garden. 

Above are the same white tulips you saw higher up in this chapter, only from an overhead perspective. 

The tulip above and below are the same; the one above is the original composition, the one below is after doing another all-black background painting. The second photo below is a close crop of the photo above. 

Coming tomorrow: Chapter 10, Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library and other Downtown architecture

Previously in Catching Up ... on pre-blog years:

Introduction

Chapter 1: Seek the Riot metal band

Chapter 2: City of Franklin, Ind.

Chapter 3: 2004 Memorial Day weekend tornado 

Chapter 4: 2006 Irvington Walk in the Park

Chapter 5: 2008 Irvington Walk in the Park

Chapter 6: Irvington Neighborhood, Indianapolis

Chapter 7: Lockerbie Square Neighborhood, Indianapolis

Chapter 8: Garfield Park-South Neighborhood, Indianapolis

Home flower gardens looking very good

Lee Ann and daughter Lea have developed a couple of nice flower gardens -- in addition to the vegetable gardens in raised beds -- on the property in the years since we have been in Raleigh. 

Each year, the colors seem to get better and better, giving us an extra focal point when gazing from our comfy perches on the back deck. 

This post is about the results of this year's floral gardens; I'm not even going to both with captions. I would need Lee Ann next to me identifying at least a third of these, and she's not here right now. Some of these were taken June 25; the others a month later on July 22. 

I will say that among the blooms here are petite roses, black-eyed-susan, coleus, impatiens, caladium, hibiscus, gladiolus, pansy and dahlia. I learned this year that there are impatiens that like sunlight; I'd always thought impatiens were a shade flower. At the very bottom, there are shots of the two gardens where you'll find most of these blooms. 

The ladies also have some pots on the deck that are displaying some pretty flowers, one of which, a personal favorite of mine, is the sun-splashed coleus seen the second photo below. This photo was taken June 25; it's larger and more striking today. 

Funny story about the caladium. Lee Ann and Lea planted bulbs for those two summers ago, but they didn't come up. Well, at least not in the garden where they were planted. We saw these very caladium in a neighbor's property, not more than 20 yards from where the ladies had planted them in the garden seen in the penultimate photo in this post. And the spot they came up in the neighbor's property was not a well-maintained area; it's essentially ignored. 

Well ... the caladium came up -- and more of them -- this year, and yes, IN our garden where they were planted two summers ago. We have been trying to theorize what happened ever since. If you're not familiar with caladium, they are the big-leaf variegated blooms below (pictures 14 through 18 below). 

Enjoy. 

Autumn beauty, colors are just a few steps away from the door ...

COVID-19 has kept me close to home since March, limiting my photography to creative ideas I can come up. Every once in a while, that entails simply setting foot outside ... and into my own yard.

Autumn is my favorite time of year, and the leaves are just now displaying their prime colors in North Carolina. So I've done a few short shoots on the property in the past week, and am displaying the results here. All were taken with my iPhone 11. I hope you enjoy them.