Remarkable Color!

[SCraig]

I shot these this morning under virtually cloudless blue skies. Yesterday's clouds blew out and the color in these tulips was amazing. Shot in RAW with no saturation added in post since they certainly didn't need it!

 

[dudley_53]

I love the color, and the water shows the focus so well.

 

[MitchStrp]

Incredible!!! Tell us your setup!

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Beautiful set Scott!

 

[SCraig]

Thanks guys. They were shot at Cheekwood Botanical Garden, and I went over there to try and find some Iris. I haven't seen any in bloom yet and a friend in Arizona asked me to shoot some for his girlfriend. I figured if they were blooming anywhere they would be out at Cheekwood. Unfortunately, none there either but there were about 55,000 Tulips according to the brochure.

Incredible!!! Tell us your setup!

About as simple as it gets: D7000 with a Sigma 17-70 lens. Post-processed in Nikon Capture NX2. Aperture priority with exposures all over the place to get the depth of field I wanted. The water came from a spray bottle I carry with me

 

[LaFoto]

Eh, tricky: spray bottle!
Good idea, and lovely colours, indeed.
How I long for spring!

 

[oldhippy]

Nice set Scott, 2 I think is best.

 

[manaheim]

CHEATER!!!

Agree... stunning color. Very pretty. Thanks for sharing them!

 

[sm4him]

I really expected an Indigo Bunting or some other especially colorful bird.
This was a pleasant surprise, though--I love, love, love #2, just beautiful!

You should have been here yesterday--on my way out to the wildlife refuge near me, I passed a whole stand of beautiful irises that were blooming along the side of the road! I almost stopped and took some pictures of them, but there were no really good places to pull off that wouldn't have meant walking back to that spot, and I just wasn't quite THAT much into it.

 

[SCraig]

Eh, tricky: spray bottle!
Good idea, and lovely colours, indeed.
How I long for spring!

I'm not going to go out on a limb and say that spring is here to stay yet, our weather is far too unpredictable. Wednesday it was in the 80's here. Thursday the high topped out somewhere in the 50's. This time of year is just plain strange in this part of the USA, but occasionally we get a couple of days of sparkling blue skies.

Nice set Scott, 2 I think is best.

Thanks, Ed. #2 was my favorite as well. I wish I had gotten the water a bit more even but that little bottle I had doesn't spray very well.

CHEATER!!!

Agree... stunning color. Very pretty. Thanks for sharing them!

Yes, I am a cheater

I once read an article about how food photography is done and how the food is prepared so that it looks appetizing in the photograph. The only thing I remember about it now is them using a soldering iron to burn grille lines in a steak. After that I figured all was fair.

I really expected an Indigo Bunting or some other especially colorful bird.
This was a pleasant surprise, though--I love, love, love #2, just beautiful!

You should have been here yesterday--on my way out to the wildlife refuge near me, I passed a whole stand of beautiful irises that were blooming along the side of the road! I almost stopped and took some pictures of them, but there were no really good places to pull off that wouldn't have meant walking back to that spot, and I just wasn't quite THAT much into it.

This time of year color dominates and I tend to focus on things with color. It's just so nice to see something that isn't gray and I love to get out and just see color in the world again.

Those shots were actually "Double Cheat". The flowers in the last shot were along the top of a wall so I got on the low side of the wall and shot it. The others were in a flower box on top of a flight of outdoor stairs so I was able to stand below them and shoot up at them to get the sky in the shot. My days of laying on my back to get a shot are long gone

Glad you guys liked them. Thanks very much for your comments. Much appreciated.

 

[manaheim]

on the fairness. That's awesome.

 

[HL45]

Seemingly perfect light in the whole set! Nice work!

 

[Heitz]

Eh, tricky: spray bottle!
Good idea, and lovely colours, indeed.
How I long for spring!

I'm not going to go out on a limb and say that spring is here to stay yet, our weather is far too unpredictable. Wednesday it was in the 80's here. Thursday the high topped out somewhere in the 50's. This time of year is just plain strange in this part of the USA, but occasionally we get a couple of days of sparkling blue skies.

Nice set Scott, 2 I think is best.

Thanks, Ed. #2 was my favorite as well. I wish I had gotten the water a bit more even but that little bottle I had doesn't spray very well.

CHEATER!!!

Agree... stunning color. Very pretty. Thanks for sharing them!

Yes, I am a cheater

I once read an article about how food photography is done and how the food is prepared so that it looks appetizing in the photograph. The only thing I remember about it now is them using a soldering iron to burn grille lines in a steak. After that I figured all was fair.

I really expected an Indigo Bunting or some other especially colorful bird.
This was a pleasant surprise, though--I love, love, love #2, just beautiful!

You should have been here yesterday--on my way out to the wildlife refuge near me, I passed a whole stand of beautiful irises that were blooming along the side of the road! I almost stopped and took some pictures of them, but there were no really good places to pull off that wouldn't have meant walking back to that spot, and I just wasn't quite THAT much into it.

This time of year color dominates and I tend to focus on things with color. It's just so nice to see something that isn't gray and I love to get out and just see color in the world again.

Those shots were actually "Double Cheat". The flowers in the last shot were along the top of a wall so I got on the low side of the wall and shot it. The others were in a flower box on top of a flight of outdoor stairs so I was able to stand below them and shoot up at them to get the sky in the shot. My days of laying on my back to get a shot are long gone

Glad you guys liked them. Thanks very much for your comments. Much appreciated.

I gotta get out to cheekwood. Never thought about the water bottle trick. I'm going to have to try that.

 

[SCraig]

Seemingly perfect light in the whole set! Nice work!

Not perfect since it was mid morning and very bright, but the shadows weren't too bad and the sunlight really lit up the tulips.

I gotta get out to cheekwood. Never thought about the water bottle trick. I'm going to have to try that.

Glycerine works better but when I get caught I don't mind saying it's just water and spraying some in my mouth to prove it

The tulips are part of "Cheekwood In Bloom" and I think it ends on April 30. Starting May 24 they have an event called "Light – Bruce Munro at Cheekwood" and that exhibit appears to consist of thousands of little light balls. Here's a shot of some of them (actually a very small portion of them) and you can see that they go all the way to the building in the background:

There is probably more to it than just those balls, but that's all I saw on Saturday. They still have a month to set up though.

Cheekwood is supposed to be open some at night (Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I think) to show them off. Why they don't open on Saturday night I'll never know, but that's Cheekwood.