Macro Photography – Page 5 – Different Isn't Wrong, It's Just Different

Back in June, I posted the four images that were submitted to the Iowa State Fair in my post From 74 to 4. It has been a long wait to find out which of my images broke The Glass Ceiling and has been on display at the Iowa State Fair!

Much to my surprise, the image on display is White Mushrooms! If you have been following me for a while, you know that macro photography is one of my favorite genres. I’m all about details most of the time. In my opinion, this was the weakest image I submitted. You just never know what is going to happen. This image was made in my backyard after a significant amount of rain. These large white mushrooms popped up and I thought they looked like popcorn or slightly toasted marshmallows. Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, “I won’t look any further than my own backyard” sometimes pays off.

The photography contest at the Iowa State Fair is a tough competition. My instinct was my image Twirling Swinging Bridge was the image that would be on display. Interestingly, when submitting my images, one of the volunteers snubbed her nose at my White Mushrooms image. I was annoyed that she behaved in that manner right in front of me and thought her reaction was unprofessional. At the time I thought, “I hope that image is chosen for display”. Karma, I guess.

But, before I toot my horn too loud, only 12 images were submitted to the Macro class. Four were chosen for display, with three winning ribbons. I’ll take the “win” that one of my images was on display. There were a total of 2191 images submitted with 635 chosen for display. Of the 635 on display, 193 received ribbons. What does that mean? Only 29% of the images submitted were on display and 30% of those received ribbons. As I said, it is a tough competition and to have one image on display is something to be proud of. But, I will toot my horn and say I have entered this photography contest three times and all three times I have had at least one image on display and in 2017 one image took first place in it’s class. And that is something to be very proud of!

My Desert Bluebells (Phacelia campanularia) are blooming early as they usually do and below is a gallery of 6 images (click on each image to see a larger view). An overcast day with the hopes of rain, I chose to shoot at home and go back to my passion, macro photography and wildflowers. The sun tried peeking through the clouds creating some beautiful light. The image above, the light was coming from above and behind the wildflowers, but not harsh light thanks to the wonderful cloud cover. And the background? Well, our dark olive/army green trash container came in handy. With exposure and a slight adjustment to the tone curve in post processing, I was able to darken the background.

The bees have found my wildflowers as seen in a couple of the images in the gallery below. I have never been stung when shooting my wildflowers with the bees. Sometimes I miss great shots as I so enjoy watching them work. At times they land on the anthers, but on this day they were interested in crawling down into the wildflowers. The last image in the gallery is a textured image that was done during post processing. The background was originally my dull gray driveway and it seemed perfect to add multiple layers of different textures.

It won’t be long before the desert is in full bloom! For now, I’ll keep shooting my Desert Bluebells.