Let’s do one last shot of spring, shall we? It’s that time right before summer when the mornings are still cool, but you can feel the coming heat on your skin. You know summer is inevitable and you enjoy the warmth, but you’re not overwhelmed by it. Some of the summer flowers have already begun to bloom. Some of the spring flowers are long gone. It’s that time in-between times, the transition, which is so delicious at times. Enjoy!

If you should like to license an image of mine, I’ve begun to build a catalog at Picfair. You can see it here: photos.raoulpop.com. Of course you can also contact me directly, but it’s probably easier to just get them there, and I think I’ve priced them quite affordably.

Places

Today’s images

It’s been (and still is) a particularly lovely springtime in our garden, so I’m sharing more of that with you. Enjoy!

Places

Today’s images

Places

Summer in our garden

I promised I’d put together a gallery of photos taken in our garden last summer (that’d be the summer of 2018 for those of you who’ll be reading this in future years), and here it is.

Get ready to see 347 photos of summertime, taken between June and August of last year. Grab a cup of tea or coffee and enjoy! 😀

A two-frame focus stack
A three-frame focus stack. The little speck you see in the upper left quadrant is a tiny little insect.
A two-frame focus stack
A two-frame focus stack
A two-frame focus stack at f2.8 🙂
A two-frame focus stack
I prefer them unpicked 🙂
Apparently that’s the name for this kind of blossom 🙂
A three-frame focus stack
Apparently that’s the name for this kind of blossom 🙂
Apparently that’s the name for this kind of blossom 🙂
A two-frame focus stack
An adorable little creature
A two-frame focus stack
A four-frame focus stack
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
On the evening of the summer solstice, 21st of June 2018
A four-frame focus stack
A three-frame focus stack
A two-frame focus stack
A two-frame focus stack
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
A three-frame focus stack
In the garden, summer of 2018
In the garden, summer of 2018
In the garden, summer of 2018
In the garden, summer of 2018
In the garden, summer of 2018
In the garden, summer of 2018
An eight-frame focus stack, taken with my Olympus PEN E-P3, the 45mm f1.8 lens and the MCON-P02 converter
One of our small cypress trees is recovering after almost drying out

Places

Springtime in our garden

Spring has arrived and that means it’s time for my annual gallery of photographs from our garden. This is the sixth edition mind you, so it has become somewhat of a tradition for me. I hope you have a cup of tea or coffee ready — if you don’t, go get one — because there are 131 photographs for you to see. There’s also something different from previous years: I’ve taken most of the photos with my Olympus gear, particularly with my PEN E-P5 and the new lenses I bought for it. This equipment is so light and so responsive it feels like I’m almost cheating when I use it. And there’s no compromise in image quality. I love it. Enjoy the photographs!

The petals on the lower daisy have been partially eaten by a snail

Primula and other assorted plants and flowers

A bee gathers pollen from grape hyacinths

Daisies starting to close their petals for the day

$Fuzzy fractal$

I call it fuzzy because of the fine hairs on the leaves of this developing comfrey plant

A focus stack

These flowers just love to spring up on the garden path instead of sticking to the tended grounds. Also notice the itsy-bitsy spider hiding behind the shrub in the foreground.

$A lovely fractal$

In our own garden

A focus stack

A focus stack

$Red-tinged fractal$

A growing evening primrose plant

It’s not often I wake up early enough to see the dawn. I usually work late into the night, because I find that’s when I can gather my thoughts and be at my most productive — when I’m alone, the noises of the day have subsided and the only sounds I hear are the reassuring churning of the hard drive platters in my Drobo and my own breath.

When I do manage to wake up early (or work through the night and into the dawn), I get these gorgeous, glorious views of the Earth waking up as that huge fireball called the Sun starts to light things up. Mind you, I’m not talking about the sunrise. It’s the dawn, also known as the daybreak. It’s when the darkness of the night starts to fade away and shapes begin to form out of the mist. It’s when things unseen become seen.

I thought I’d publish a gallery of various photos I’ve taken in recent years of the dawn. Some of the photos are from places where I’ve lived, others are from places I visited and most are from the road. My wife and I would often just get in our car and drive to some town where we had business in the middle of the night, so we’d be there in the morning. The roads were quiet and it was an experience unto itself to be in the middle of nowhere, our car a capsule of civilization and warmth in an otherwise cold place at a cold time, its headlights eyes, peering out into the darkness and making sense of it. Now that we have a small daughter, there’s no night driving. We’re too exhausted. We’re happy to take any and all sleep we can get. Which is what I’m going to do after publishing this post, because it’s way past midnight here.

This gallery isn’t exhaustive, it’s a work in progress (I hope I’m around for a long, long time to capture countless more dawns on bits and bytes) but I think it’s beautiful to look at and I hope you do too. Enjoy!

Long exposure looking out over the Intracostal and A1A.

Grottammare, Italy.

Somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains, about 50-60 km from the city of Brasov, in Transilvania, Romania.

Mt. Prislop at night, about 2 am, Bucovina, Romania.

Above Pisa and Livorno, Italy. Not an ideal photo but the dawn colors were wonderful.

Sandpipers pace the beach at dawn. Hollywood, Florida, USA.

Grottammare, Italy.

A bright orange sky above distant mountain peaks signals a new day, while a winding road descends slowly into the fog-covered valley below.

A long, straight road, lined with poplar trees and covered in fog. Somewhere in Dobrogea, Romania.

Mt. Prislop at night, Bucovina, Romania.

Near the city of Brasov, Romania. The dawn sun is flooding the distant valley (just behind the peak in the foreground) with a lot of golden light. Meanwhile, the portion of the road where I stand is still covered in shadows.

Dawn starts to color the sky in our neighborhood. Taken right from our apartment’s terrace in North Bethesda, MD.

Dawn, Grosvenor Park.

A hillside on the outskirts of Tulcea, Romania, blanketed in soft fog.

First snowfall of the 2010-11 winter, Medias, Romania.

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Morning sky at sunrise.

Somewhere in South Carolina, on I-95. Life and travel are often alike, aren’t they? If you don’t stop to look around, things pass you right by.

Shore, Intracostal Waterway, early morning, long exposure. Hollywood, Florida, USA.

Dawn, January morning, Grosvenor Park.

Antennae and trees, morning fog.

Hilltops in the distance, somewhere between Fiser and Rupea, Transilvania, Romania.

The Tulcea Monument, early morning.

There was a gas station right behind me when I took this photo.   We’d been driving through the night and stopped to get gas somewhere in North or South Carolina. The station was closed and so were the pumps.   I paused to take a few photos. I stood the camera on the roof of the car and exposed this scene for a little over a second.   It was mid-winter. I was thoroughly frozen and my teeth were clanking by the time I got back into the car.