Philadelphia Flower Show 2013

On Sunday I had a few hours off so I decided to head downtown to the Philadelphia Flower Show. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society produces the event that is held at the Philadelphia Convention Center in early March annually. There is usually a theme around which the participants create their art. This year’s theme was Great Britain nicknamed “Brilliant”.

It’s been years since I’ve been to the show and noticed immediately that the grand displays were a bit smaller than I remembered, but the venue was just as crowded. (They expect a quarter of a million people every year).

Now a word about flower pictures... I have been told never to include pictures of flowers in any kind of portfolio because of two reasons:

1.) There are billions upon billions of flower pictures everywhere. That is to say, unless the image I took was so memorable that it is head and shoulders above all other flower images most people will see... yet another flower.

2.) A flower is like the manifestation of nature’s beauty, a miraculous gift from God, each blossom is perfect in its own way. So if the flower doesn’t look amazing then the photographer probably made it look worse than it did in real life.

Enjoy.

Nikon D4 Sigma 8mm f/3.5 fisheye@ 8mm f/7.1 ISO 400 1/160 sec with flash

Sigma 8mm fisheye

I don’t talk a lot about camera gear. I think of it as tools for a job. Gear is a very important and costly part of photography and has a specific use in every photo, but for the viewer, it plays a “behind the scenes” role. I’m sure great chefs have amazing pots and pans, but it’s the food people rave about. So here’s a little story about a little lens I used this past weekend, but have decided to return.

The Sigma 8mm f/3.5 circular fisheye is a lens for very specific uses, which I thought I might be able to incorporate into some of my work. But after a weekend with it, it’s not for me. I got to the Philadelphia Flower Show yesterday (and I’ll talk about that tomorrow) and made great use of the lens. 8mm is a very, very wide field of view. So wide that the pictures taken through this lens encompass 180 degree of vision. When holding the camera to your eye, and taking a picture, your feet, as well as what is above you, are in the picture. Since it is circular, this goes from side to side as well, which is great if you’re looking into a big arena:

Photoshop has a quick lens correction button to correct for distortions in most every lens made.  After correcting the picture looks like this.

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I think there is still too much distortion to make the picture good enough to use. I will continue to take multiple pictures and stitch them together.  At the flower show, I found a whole new use for the lens.  Pictures can be taken less than an inch away which gives a different dimension to flower pictures.  Here is the uncorrected:

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And the corrected:​

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I think with a bit of cropping I will like the uncorrected picture better.  Check back tomorrow for the Flower Show scoop.​

March 2013 Calendar

Welcome to March. Spring is right around the corner, and not a moment too soon. The Winter months have taken a toll on my landscape photography. It’s hard to summon the fortitude not only to get up really early, but to endure the sub freezing temperatures. I am looking forward to making beautiful pictures again. For your calendar this month I thought a burst of Spring color might be a welcome peek at things to come.

Nikon D5100 Nikkor 18-55mm kit lens @ 5mm f/10 ISO 100 1/30 sec.​