Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Morning Monochrome

I woke up somewhat early the Saturday morning before our vacation and decided to grab the camera on my way out into the back yard. I was hoping for a few quick snapshots before the rain began to fall. Randy's new camera, a Sony DSC-H50, has some very cool features on it; one of which is an editor that allows you to transform your photos to a monochrome scheme while still on the camera. It even allows you to crop what area you want to remain in color and what you wish to turn into greyscale.

I managed to get quite a few great shots of some of the beauties in bloom right now and then I monochromed them all for quite a dramatic finish!

Black Liriope, also known as monkey grass, is quite interesting as the top of its leaves are dark black and the underside a deep, vibrant shade of green. The blooms are quite intriguing to me; even moreso in monochromatic photography.



Here we have a few shots of our enormous collection of day lillies. This jewel here is called Chorus Line:



And another day lily here called Red Rum:



And one last monochrome day lily for your enjoyment, Apricot Sparkle!



Here we have a shot of 'Oranges and Lemons' Gaillardia with a friendly little bee crawling along its delicate petals:



Here is a close-up macro shot of one of the fourteen 'Razzle Dazzle' Double Knock-Out roses which will eventually create a hedge at the edge of the island bed. I stare at the blooms and the color of the petals reminds me of the rosy-red lips of a delicate china doll:



And here, we have one final monochromatic snapshot for you. The bright cluster of flowers here are from 'Homestead' Purple Trailing Verbena. Gorgeous, are they not?

10 comments:

Monica the Garden Faerie said...

Wow, that's some camera. You may (or may not) want to mention to Randy that the little nandina's leaves are purple--apparently it was cold overnight while I was out of town. My marigold foliage looks the same way, but I'm sure both will recover!

sweetbay said...

Chorus Line and Apricot Sparkle are beautiful!!

Jan said...

Hi guys;-) Thanks for the well-wishes re: my ankle. It'll soon heal, but it is a bit 'inconveniencing'!! Your 'monochrome' shots w/a bit of color are magnificent...as are the blooms that are their subject! I truly love this time of year...so much continuing to show up in the garden! Have a wonderful day! Jan

Roses and Lilacs said...

What an interesting camera feature. It really highlights the blooms. My daylilies haven't begun blooming. I've collected quite a few over the years but they have been moved so may times the names are mostly lost.
Marnie

Gail said...

Hi Randy and Jamie, I am just back from out of town and had to stop by to say hello! The flowers are wonderful...I especially loved visiting your daylilies from an earlier post! I suspect that my camera has features I've yet to discover, but this monochrome feature is new to me.

I am just now getting unpacked and am wondering if you think the PPPP and Penstemon X would survive the heat of being shipped or if we ought to wait until fall?

Gail

Randy said...

Monica,
I'm sure your nandina will recover just fine - they're quite the troopers here in our zone. If it doesn't, let us know and we can send you another. If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. If all else fails, start a compost heap with it. ;0)

Sweet Bay,
Thanks for your comments. I agree those are two OUTSTANDING specimens of day lillies!

Jan,
I was just goofing around when I found the monochrome scheme on his camera. It was a total fluke and then I went monochrome happy ;0) Glad to hear you're recovering well.

Marnie,
I'm sure as the years pass and we rearrange our garden that we'll lose some or most of our day lily names as well. But that's the theory behind a garden, right? It's an ever-evolving work of art in the gardener's eye.

Gail,
Glad to hear you're back in town and had a safe trip. I'm not sure about the plants. Hopefully Randy will chime in later and let you know! ;0)

--Jamie

Skeeter said...

What a neat feature the camera has! Hum, I wonder if my camera can do such fun stuff. Maybe if I could crack the code in the manual reading I would know. Too technical for me. The Saint would know but I cannot hand over my camera for a day for him to explore as I would be lost without my garden buddy the camera. Neat pictures you have there…

Dirt Princess said...

That is so neat! It just makes them look remarkable! Really pops out at you

F Cameron said...

What fun! You got really creative and I just love the results!

Cameron

Lisa at Greenbow said...

What a fun trick to do with your camera. You could do all sorts of creative things.