Gallery of past work

Sunday 21 August 2016

Leaf patterns against a summer sky

The other day, for no particular reason, I was struck by the variety of leaf patterns on the trees in our garden, especially when seen from below against a clear summer sky. Perhaps it was because we haven't had many of those this year, or perhaps I just haven't had the time to sit and take casual notice.

I spent this afternoon amusing myself, converting the photos to black and white and upping the contrast levels in Adobe Photoshop. The most successful are posted here.






One of the trees is a delightful, late flowering tree, whose name I don't know. Even at this time of year, it has lovely acid green leaves and these large spikes of white flowers with pink centres. It is most definitely not a native tree and was planted around 40 years ago by the previous family to live in our house. If anyone can recognise it, I'd be delighted to know its name and where it comes from. 




10 comments:

  1. At first glance it looks like a catalpa, or Indian bean tree. Does it have long seedpods? Our next door neighbour has one, and it is beautiful.

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    1. Very many thanks, Olga. I googled catalpa and up came a photo identical to mine, complete with the pink centres to the flowers. Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to yield long seedpods but maybe that's because there are no others locally for pollination?

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  2. I particularly like the 4th photo down. It as an airier feel or maybe it's the spikiness that causes me to like it more than the pine needles, which I also like. Just not as much. :-)

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    1. I think my favourite was the first because of the contrast I was able to generate on Photoshop ... but it was a close run thing!

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  3. les feuilles qui respirent et qui nous font respirer.. bises

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  4. How lovely to think that your muse was sitting next to you the whole time!! I suppose she is always there, but we are sometimes to distracted to hear her!!

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    1. We ignore her at our peril, but it's so easy to do so.
      Blogger seems to be having a silly moment just now and double posting comments, which I've deleted.

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  5. I love your pictures.
    I sit and look at the leaves all the time but .... my pictures don't turn out like yours. I'll look thru the camera lens a bit differently now. Thanks.

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    1. Thank you Ricky in Winnipeg. Good to hear from you.
      These were taken in colour on my Panasonic bridge camera and then turned to black and white in Adobe Photoshop. I then adjusted light levels to maximise contrast ... so I guess you could say they're a cheat really, but fun nevertheless, and a great way to take images to interesting places!

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