It was still nearly 100 degrees late this afternoon when I got home, but I guess you know you love photography when you brave that kind of heat to take a few pictures (would you call 263 pictures a few?). Besides the sweltering heat, the mosquitoes were brutal. I really was too tired to get in my car and go anyplace, so I remember a while back when I promised to take pictures of the different stages cotton goes through. You southern girls might know all about cotton, but bear with me on the cotton for a minute or two.
When the cotton starts blooming in the tops of the plants, the blooming stops. If there are too many blooms, they begin to fall off because the plant can only support so much fruit. As you see, our cotton is loaded with blooms and the tops of the plants have blooms on them.
This is called a square. The wilted bloom has already fallen out of this "square", but there is a tiny boll forming in here.
This wilted bloom didn't fall out of its square and there is a small boll growing inside that is pushing it out.
This boll is really getting large and pushing the wilted bloom farther out.
This is on its way to becoming one of those fluffy bolls of mature cotton.
After I got my photos of the cotton, I turned around and saw a huge yellow tiger butterfly all over the Abelia. I don’t know what the real name of this species of butterfly is, but we always called them yellow tiger butterflies. I haven’t tried taking pictures using shutter priority very much but I knew I’d have to set the shutter speed real fast if I wanted anything sharp. I turned the dial to shutter priority and set the speed to 1/4000. Since the sun was getting a little low, I left the aperture on 1.4 to let in as much light as possible. Maybe I should have dealt with the settings in a more deliberate way, but I was worried about the butterfly getting away so I just did the best I could. He hung around, although he moved from bloom to bloom rather quickly. With the aperture on 1.4, the depth of field was more shallow than would have been ideal given the depth of the butterfly's wingspan, but I did get some pictures I was fairly pleased with. This is the most difficult photography task I’ve ever tackled. I’m glad the opportunity presented itself. I might never have moved out of my comfort zone had it not.
When a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away.
- Anna Pavlova
May your Sunday be filled with happiness and delight.
2 comments:
The butterfly photos are great! I just wanted to get out of the house yesterday, so we decided to drive into Dallas to do a few things, and visit the Texas Discovery Gardens and Butterfly House - even if it was over 100 degrees! There were some gorgeous butterflies, but I was not able to capture many photographs due to their flitting and my wonky eyes unable to keep up with them!
When driving to and from college, I would often pass the West Texas cotton fields in various stages. My favorite time was cotton picking, with puffs of white all over the fields and highways. It would almost look like snow, but was much easier to drive through!
Thanks for the compliment! I wish I'd had a different lens on my camera and a tripod for the butterfly show, but the butterfly appearance was a complete surprise. I incorrectly stated that I set the aperture on 1.4 when I described how I got the shots, and didn't think about what I had done until sometime during the night. I set the camera on shutter priority and therefore the aperture was set automatically. I know the aperture was opened up, but I didn't set it. It worried me to have incorrectly described how I got the shots, but not enough to get up and edit. Of course, those were cropped a lot because I couldn't get close enough. Fine for the web, but not so great had I wanted a print. I think it is murder trying to capture a decent shot of something that moves that rapidly, particularly when you don't know where it is going- even if your eyes are in perfect shape. My eyes give me a fit, too. Thick glasses+viewfinder is tough enough. I've considered setting the camera so I could shoot without my glasses, but I'd be pulling them on and off every time I wanted to change a setting or look at what I'd just shot. No easy answers when you have eye troubles.
Us southern girls are used to seeing the cotton at harvest but I've had many a guest who marveled at how it looks as they've never seen it except in photos. And even people who live in town around here don't know what the actual plant looks like up close or the growth stages involved in the plant making a boll of cotton.
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