HDR Garden Flowers

Playing around with some of my garden flower photos, and decided to convert a couple to HDR.  I think they look sort of surreal, but still really pretty!  I especially love the gladiola, above.  This is the same photo that I posted a couple of days ago, but now it's in HDR.  Not saying one is better than the other - just think both are pretty and very cool in their own way!

Here's an apricot colored daylily.  There's something about this photo that just feels so fresh and clean to me.  I'm not necessarily an apricot person, but I really do love this color!

And, finally, a photo from the Sandia Mountains - the HDR effect isn't quite as pronounced here, but it does have a nice "look" to it.

Enjoy!

Front Yard Blooms!

There were such beautiful blooms in our front yard today, I couldn't resist snapping a few photos to share!  The above photo is of a gladiola that I planted in one of my pots (along with moss roses) - I just love the color of it!

And, this lovely pair of blooms are day lilies, which are blooming for the first time since I planted the bulbs/corms a couple of years ago.  Some of my day lilies are still quite small, but eventually, I'll have a wonderful day lily patch!

And, finally, this close-up of another type of lily that has started blooming for the first time in the garden.  I planted the bulb/corm a couple of years ago, so I don't even remember what type of lily this is!  LOL!  Still, it is really pretty and worth the wait.

Enjoy!

Earth Laughs In Flowers ATCs

I just completed an ATC (Artist Trading Card) swap a couple of days ago.  This was my first swap in several months.  This was a photo swap of close-up shots of flowers - an easy swap for me!  The above flower was one I didn't have to travel very far to find - it was in our front yard.  The colors are so vibrant - I love it! 

This is another front yard bloom, from one of our yucca plants.  The yucca is the official state flower - such a pretty one, don't you think?  I love the soft effect of this image, too.

And, finally, this is an image from a garden, just not ours!  I took this image last year, when we were visiting Jeff's sister's house.  Her peony plants were just magnificent, and I was lucky enough to get this fabulous image!

Enjoy!

Wandering Thru Nancy's Garden

These are a bit different from my usual photos. These are some photos that I took while I was wandering thru the garden of Jeff's sister, Nancy. The above flowers were just below the window of the office (formerly the dining room) of her and her hubby (Lonnie)'s home. The title of the photo - "From My Window".

The above image is of a flower in Nancy's garden that I applied a special effect filter to. Altho the original image is of a soft pastel, with this filter, the petals appear to be glowing. The title of this image is "Glowing Petals". Hopefully, this looks as cool on this blog as it does on my PC!

"Colorful Blooms" is the name of the above image. I applied a sort of painterly type filter to the image so that it looks like this is a painting instead of a photo. Wonderful wanderings thru Nancy's garden!

And, the last image is "Season's End". As I was walking by the bird bath, I saw that someone had tossed some roses into the empty bird bath. I thought it was just the perfect set up for a photo. I converted this to a black & white image, and then "erased" the black & white from certain parts of the image to allow the color of the roses and leaves to show thru. I plan to use all of these as note cards - that's why there's the special effects on these images.

Enjoy!