Natural

Recently I’d join the public and other photographers by using filters on my images and I really enjoy using them but today I decided to go old school! Leaving my photographs as is and only did a minimum of tweaks here and there. So you can see the real colours of my flora and objects that I photographed. Hope you “like”...

Black & White

Black & White photographs always have a timeless look to them. I used to change a lot of my images to black and white but I haven’t done it in a while. I forgot how it brings out the beauty of your subject and how it shows the texture of the objects. A simple brick wall can look so timeless by changing it to black and white. Hope you see the beauty in the simple things like I did...Enjoy!!!

Master Photographer - Karl Blossfeldt

Karl Blossfeldt was a botanist and photographer in turn-of-the-century Berlin. His entire photographic output is devoted to plant parts: twig ends, seed pods, tendrils, leaf buds, etc. These he meticulously arranged against stark backgrounds and photographed in magnification, so that unfamiliar shapes from the messy vegetal world are revealed as startling, elegant architectural forms.

Self Portrait, 1895

A master photographer who inspired me to specialize in Close-Up (Macro) Photography...and here is a famous quote from him.

 

"My botanical documents should contribute to restoring the link with nature. They should reawaken a sense of nature, point to its teeming richness of form, and prompt the viewer to observe for himself the surrounding plant world.” – Karl Blossfelt

 

To look at more of his work you can visit his website at:

http://www.karlblossfeldtphotos.com/

Maidenhair Fern, 1928

Monkshood, 1928

Information: http://www.profotos.com/education/referencedesk/masters/masters/karlblossfeldt/karlblossfeldt.shtml

Self Portrait 1895: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Karl_Blossfeldt_1895.jpg
Monkshood 1928: http://www.soenyun.com/Blog/tag/karl-blossfeldt/
Maidenhair Fern 1928: http://standrewsrarebooks.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/photo-eye-new-photobook-acquisitions-in-special-collections/

Walk About

I found images in one of my folders on my PC that I forgot to blog about but I did add them to my Facebook page... I took these images on the 11th of May from our garden.

Osteospermum (Boneseed)

The daisy-like flowers consists of disc florets and ray florets. Flower heads usually solitary on short peduncles, radiate, the rays curling back at night. Some species produce prussic or hydrocyanic acid and are implicated in stock poisoning. The vernacular name, bietnou is one of the very few Khoisan names still in use.

Information:

Manning, J (2008: 392) Field Guide to Wild Flowers of South Africa, 1^st ed. Cape Town: Struik Nature