Portraits of Wildflowers

Perspectives on Nature Photography

Purple and white at the same time

with 26 comments

Here are two flowers of Anemone berlandieri with a mixture of the colors you’ve seen separately in posts showing a white anemone and a purple anemone. Unlike those two flowers, which had already opened fully or almost fully and which I viewed from above, these were still only beginning to open, and I put my head near the ground to look at them from below. Note the yellow tinge in the areas where each stem adjoins its sepals. There are also fine hairs on the stems and sepals, though it may be hard for you to see them in an image of this size. And speaking of difficulty, that’s what I often encounter in trying to keep two objects in focus at the same time when they’re at slightly different distances from the camera’s lens—and in this case when there was limited light and the wind was blowing intermittently. Because of those problems, I took a bunch of photographs from varying positions to increase the chances of getting a reasonably good image. This is one of a few that I felt came out all right.

I took this picture on the morning of February 23 in the same place in northwest Austin where, exactly two weeks earlier, I photographed the white anemone, the blue curls, the agarita, and the false dayflower that you’ve recently seen.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman

Written by Steve Schwartzman

February 26, 2012 at 5:40 AM

26 Responses

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  1. It was worth the extra effort!

    Nancy

    dogear6

    February 26, 2012 at 6:15 AM

  2. Yes, this came out quite all right. You are good with the lenses.

    georgettesullins

    February 26, 2012 at 6:25 AM

    • And the lenses pay me back by being good to me (usually, but sometimes they pout and act difficult).

      Steve Schwartzman

      February 26, 2012 at 7:02 AM

  3. Reblogged this on vargasjill and commented:
    nice.

    vargasjill

    February 26, 2012 at 7:30 AM

  4. There have been many times since I started following your work, that I wished I could order your photographs on note cards to share with good friends… ~ Lynda

    pixilated2

    February 26, 2012 at 8:41 AM

  5. I would say the extra effort paid off handsomely!!

    dhphotosite

    February 26, 2012 at 10:58 AM

  6. Ohhh & Ahhh – So Pretty:) Thanks for sharing!

    cravesadventure

    February 26, 2012 at 12:12 PM

  7. Very pretty image! I feel your frustration when trying to get two near images in focus. You did a fine job!

    Peggy A Thompson

    February 26, 2012 at 1:29 PM

    • Thanks, Peggy; sounds like you’ve been there too. Most of the pictures in this sequence were off a bit, but all it takes is one good one to make me happy.

      Steve Schwartzman

      February 26, 2012 at 1:44 PM

  8. I do love the clean lines, the structure of the photo. I’m continually amazed at the power of a photographer to select, highlight and reinterpret things that surround us every day, making them appear exotic.

    shoreacres

    February 26, 2012 at 4:47 PM

    • You’ve hit it. I see my role as elevating the ordinary. Many’s the time I’ve thought that if I brought people to the site of a photograph like this one, they’d be baffled to identify the picture with the place. (Of course lying on the ground with a macro lens would make the identification easier.)

      Steve Schwartzman

      February 26, 2012 at 5:53 PM

  9. Super duo illuminé sur d’un fond richement foncé. 🙂

    Anne Jutras

    February 26, 2012 at 6:11 PM

    • Anne notes that this is a super illuminated duo against a richly darkened background. I’ll add that the background was a bunch of Ashe juniper trees, of which we have many in central Texas. Because I exposed for the brightness of the flowers, the trees came out pretty dark. The green in the lower half of the background was from other plants far enough away to lose all detail.

      Steve Schwartzman

      February 26, 2012 at 7:03 PM

  10. Beautiful image Steve!

    Michael Glover

    February 26, 2012 at 10:05 PM

  11. Very nice!

    montucky

    February 27, 2012 at 10:56 PM

    • It’s not often that I’ve photographed two flowers together. I can’t remember if I’ve showed a duo portrait in these pages before.

      Steve Schwartzman

      February 28, 2012 at 5:42 AM

  12. […] land in northwest Austin that most recently and fruitfully brought you pictures of a hover fly and crossed anemones. I did my best to keep the closer edge of the leaf in focus, and my trusty Canon 100mm macro lens […]

  13. […] apparently led to my photograph of two crossed purple and white anemones. I’m glad the search engine found it to be a good […]

  14. […] land in northwest Austin that most recently and fruitfully brought you pictures of a hover fly and crossed anemones. I did my best to keep the closer edge of the leaf in focus, and my trusty Canon 100mm macro lens […]


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