Feeling Like Summer
Warm breezes, ample sunshine and the flowers of summer.
Fresh, like a glass of lemonade....
Or cool and fragrant
Lazy, dreamy days approaching the summer solstice
Smoky Selway Ridges
1 day ago
Showing posts with label purple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label purple. Show all posts
Still Life
It's that time of year - when the long winter becomes a weight, heavy and dark on many people's souls. I can tell the days are getting longer, but the cold, the bitter cold just lingers and I yearn for some rays of warmth to divert my mind. It's the only time of year I buy flowers and I seek out the harbinger of the coming spring - the tulip.
Nothing comes close to its grace, color and delicate beauty, inside and out.
Brighten my day and night.
Purple Berries
Not very fall-like, but I captured these berries not too long ago. I was totally drawn to the vivid purple color.
Purple and green is one of my favorite color combinations, and always reminds me of a bathing suit I bought in my early teens. A one piece, with purple and green diagonal stripes, purchased from the Spiegel Catalog through the mail - one of the first mail order purchases for me. I remember feeling quite out of my comfort zone with that color combination - perhaps it was a departure from the style of that time. But so I digress.
The trees here have reached their peak and I need to get out there with my camera before it's all gone!
Edited to add: The plant photographed is a Callicarpa or Beautyberry, a shrub found mainly in the South.
Iris | Three Variations
I'm not sure what it is with me and the water iris this year - I am constantly drawn to them. Maybe it's because they have been prolific (and taken over almost half of the pond). Maybe it's the weather - this morning's crisp and cool start, this evening's warm and calm end. I hope you aren't tired of their elegant purple flags.
From this morning:
Even though I was running late for work, I took time to capture the scene because I loved the way it looked from inside the house.
From this afternoon:
When the quality of light is just magnificent, I can't help but go out and shoot something!
This one is almost ready to bloom - but I captured it just for the bokeh:
Shared with Tuesday's Muse and Communal Global.
Iris and Peonies Blooming In My Garden
First - a purple and white iris - this is new to my garden - a neighbor down the street was having new landscaping installed and offered up soon to be replaced bearded iris to anyone who wanted them. She even dug these up for me! They bloomed on Friday and I was amazed by the color.
These Peonies aren't from my garden - they are from next door. Thankfully, my neighbors know I like to take pictures of things and I don't think they mind if I'm huddled on their porch with my camera. It's the light on these beauties that caught my eye.
With all the rain we've received, the flowers are really showing off! I wonder what will bloom next.
Shared with Tuesday Muse at A Rural Journal.
Lavender
lavender, sweet lavender;
come and buy my lavender,
hide it in your trousseau, lady fair.
Let its flovely fragrance flow
Over your from head to toe,
lightening on your eyes, your cheek, your hair
Cumberkand Clark Flower Song Book 1929
One of my favorite flowers, which grows abundantly in our front yard. Its scent is calming and aids in sleep. I massage a couple drops of lavender essential oil on my hands at night and own an array of lavender lotions (some could call it a collection!).
Wishing you a calm, fragrant Sunday evening. If you are in the US, Happy Memorial Day Weekend - and a huge Thank You to all the Service People in our country.
Linked to Mary and Mosaic Monday. Read more...
The Forest
>> Thursday, April 5, 2012 –
around town,
great outdoors,
green,
purple
I started carrying my DSLR in my purse again - I removed it in January after I tore my ACL because the purse is super heavy with that camera in it. Without my DSLR with me at all times, I shifted towards using my iPhone instead.
But the big camera is back with me at all times and it came in handy Tuesday afternoon as I had 10 extra minutes to kill before my violin lesson. My teacher lives close to a forest preserve and it was a nice change of pace from the normal prairie vistas I normally photograph.
I learned these are called May Apples. They look like forest umbrellas that protect the forest floor.
And it was appropriate for me to find a fiddle head, right before violin lessons:
I still took an assortment of photos with my iPhone, but I tried to capture different vantage points with it:
If you live close to a forest preserve, make sure to go and visit it.
Linked to This or That Thursday and Rural Thursday.
Transformed
Playing around with a photo I took tonight.
The original:
Wowza, that's quite magenta.... In reality, the flower is a deep purple, which is probably the most difficult color for a digital camera to render well. I just liked the spikey center.
So, playing around in Lightroom, I applied the Bleach Bypass preset:
I prefer the pink and shades of brown to the bright magenta.
Finally, for Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday, I added her simplicity texture, multiply blending mode at 75% opacity:
Which version do you like the best?
Colors of Fall
Any idea what this is?
Growing in my neighbor's yard....
Truthfully, I've never considered using cabbage in the fall landscape. The colors are beautiful, aren't they?
Edited: I've learned that it's not Cabbage but ornamental Kale. Thanks for pointing that out, Laurie!
But I guess orange is the more traditional color for fall....
Wishing you a wonderful, Fall-ish Monday!
Seeing Purple
>> Monday, July 25, 2011 –
food and cooking,
purple
As in purple potatoes.
My friend, Jill, has these growing in her garden and she gave me several last week. I didn't think much about them until I scrubbed them clean to reveal the most gorgeous colored tubers.
Aren't they beautiful? The color reminds me of the eggplant, or aubergine, one of my favorite vegetables.
But these are beautiful on the inside, too:
So many patterns of what I'm calling "purple marble".
They cook up like regular new potatoes and I used them in a potato salad. Sorry, no pictures of the finished product, but the purple potatoes add a fun punch of color.
Yummy.
I'm sure you can find these at any specialty produce shop. Or grow your own (or be fortunate enough to have friends who share their bounty).
Wildflowers in June
It's late June and the purple-blue wildflowers have emerged on the edge of the prairie and the roads.
I don't know their official name, all I know is they are the harbinger of summer.
Thursday Diptych - Spring Fields
No Team Up Thursday this week - Lee is visiting her sister in warm, sunny Arizona.
But in the spirit of Team Up Thursday, I prepared a diptych - scenes from the fields in Spring.
The daffodils are fairly common, but the purple haze only appears in the cornfields until the farmers plow them away. I'm sure they are weeds, but they transform the brown fields into fields of purple ripples. Then, like the sunny daffodils, they are gone. Such is the fleeting of Spring.
Flowers of Fall
I love the idea of chrysanthemums, but can never pull them off in my garden. I don't like treating them like annuals and plant them in the ground where they just wither and die.....
Instead, I'll just enjoy their beautiful colors in the supermarket display.
Purple Haze
>> Monday, June 28, 2010 –
Coffeeshop Actions,
flowers,
purple,
texture
I normally don't think much about hosta flower stalks - to me the main attraction are the leaves. But walking around the yard today, I loved the purple flowers just starting to bloom.
With a texture:
Edge of the Pond
What I see as I look out the Family room window. I love the pond this time of year.
Out of the Sea of Purple
>> Wednesday, May 12, 2010 –
flowers,
purple,
PW Actions,
texture
A couple more from last night.
A faded treatment (PW's Soft and Faded Action) -
Stormy Start, Beautiful Finish
An inch of rain overnight, several thunderstorms and grey clouds this morning.
But it all cleared away this afternoon for a spectacular finish.
These caught my eye as I pulled into the driveway at 7pm. I forget what they are, and please excuse the growth of weeds in the background (you would think I would take better care of the landscaping right in front of the house!).
My friend, Lisa, has the most abundant (ie, gorgeous) collection of iris in her backyard. I started to take pictures from the street, but she saw me and welcomed me into the backyard. I realized it is really hard to take pictures of masses of flowers, so I tried to isolate them instead.
Tuesdays are quite crazy for me from a schedule standpoint - lots of activities to take kids to, so I only got these two pictures processed. I plan to get caught up later in the week.
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