In Camera Fun - Lindis Pass

Still on Day 5 of our Tekapo trip 3 months ago now.  Where has the time gone?  It's 2013, only 9 months until Christmas (in case anyone needed to know that!)  Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?

I love doing different types of photography as you know - I go all over the place, from macro, to landscapes, to artistic textures which drive the purists mad, and occasionally abstracts or impressionism.  I love doing this in camera, rather than in photoshop, although they can be done both ways.

While I was in the Lindis Pass photographing those gorgeous Lupins, I had taken my fill of images and I was waiting for Liz and Emily to finish up.  So started experimenting with different in-camera action shots.  

Firstly, I stuck my camera on AV, but upped the aperture to make sure that the image was going to take a bit longer to expose.  Then I started taking the images, but moving the camera in different directions.

The first from left to right.  I imagine this is what the river sees as it rushes past the Lupins...

Then I used the moved the zoom on my lens at the same time as pushing the shutter.  This takes a couple of tries to get right.

Then up and down.  I quite like this as it's caught the willow tree on the river bank surrounded by the Lupins...

A little diagonal...

And  love this one as you can actually see the Lupins quite clearly.  It almost reminds me of a Monet painting...

Alongside the river bank again...

 More diagonal...

This is another one of my favourites.  It almost looks like the Lupins have been twisted into candy bars...

This is another good one - as it has a clear focus point, yet is still impressionist.  I might use this in a competition a bit later on.

I had so much fun doing this.  It's really worth playing around with so give it a go.  Link me to some of yours as well - I would love to see them.  Bear in mind - that you throw away a lot of images in the process, but that's the beauty of digital photography!

The Bees of the Wild Lupins - Part 3

One of the things I love about my macro lens is that it shows me things that I would not usually see. I knew bees landed on flowers, and collected pollen, and I never thought twice how it would do that on a Lupin Flower until I saw it through my Macro Lens. Let me show you want I learnt!

Firstly, The Lupin flower head is made up of lots of pods.  These pods are actually closed - imagine a petal in a shape of an oblong bubble. The stamen is inside each pod. The bee flies to the pod..

And then proceeds to start opening the pod

This could take a bit of time depending if its been opened or not before..

 He opens the pod quite wide...

I thought he'd get into the pod, but no, he then...

pulls the stamen out and collects the honey.  Note that this particularly bee is so laden down with pollen, that when he tries to fly he simply drops in a crash...

And leaves pollen dripping off the pod! 

I did catch him again doing another pod - never gave up and those pollen sacs must be heavy.

Here's another one that isn't laden down with pollen... He alights on the pod which is closed...

Opens it up to expose the stamen.

Exposes everything so he can access it... 

then pulls himself up to collect the pollen...

Pretty amazing isn't it? It's also nice to know that honey bees are still out in force in the wild. We don't want anything happening to our bees as they do one of natures most important jobs, pollinating plants to ensure we can eat.