Some Favorites of 2018

Tags

Black-crowned Night Heron, golden retriever, gosling, great blue heron, great sand dunes national park, lotus, northern cardinal, osprey, photography, postaday, squirrel

The following photos are some of the favorites that you, my WordPress readers, have either liked the posts where they were posted in, clicked on their images to see them in larger size, or mentioned them in your comments.

Northern Cardinal, June 2018.

White Lotus, August 2018.

Ospreys, June 2018.

Goslings, May 2018.

Black-crowned Night-Heron, August 2018.

Great Sand Dunes National Park, October 2015.

Great Blue Heron, December 2018.

Squirrel, October 2018.

Jackie, the Golden Retriever, and frisbee, April 2018.

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Wordless Wednesday

Tags

carnegie center, lotus, photography, postaday, white lotus

White Lotus.

White Lotus.

Water on Lotus leaf.

White Lotus.

White Lotus.

Lotus Sunday

Tags

carnegie center, lotus, photography, postaday, white lotus

We are entering a week when it is going to rain every day. Yesterday morning, however, the sun was out and I arrived at the Lotus pond in time to see the first rays of sun fall on the flowers.

White Lotus.

White Lotus.

White Lotus.

White Lotus.

Water beads on Lotus leaf.

Docked ship.

Monochrome Monday

Tags

lotus, monochrome monday, photography, postaday

Three Lotus leaves.

Lotus leaf.

Lotus leaf.

Lotus 2018

Tags

lotus, photography, postaday, white lotus

Here are some pictures of Lotus flowers taken yesterday at the pond near our house.

Sisyphus, in this case a bee holding up a Lotus flower.

White Lotus.

White Lotus.

White Lotus.

White Lotus framed by a nearby leaf.

White Lotus.

Lotus – 2014

Tags

lotus, photography, postaday

Recently I inadvertently deleted some old posts and images from 2014. Today, another in a long string of rainy days for this week, I went back to my archives and recreated the images below. It appears that there are some viewers who have been trying to look at the images, which happen to be Lotus flowers from a pond near our house.

Pink Lotus.

White and Pink Lotus.

Pink Lotus.

Black & White Sunday: After and Before

Tags

back & white sunday, lotus, photography, postaday

This is in response to a challenge by Paula at the following link: https://bopaula.wordpress.com/2017/07/16/black-white-sunday-after-and-before-2/

White Lotus: converted to B&W.

White Lotus, original in color.

Which version do you prefer?

Early Lotus

Tags

carnegie center, dragonfly, eatern amberwing, lotus, photography, postaday, white lotus

This morning started with fog, followed by rain, then finally sunshine. After making sure the sun was there to stay, I went to the lotus pond near our house to photograph this year’s flowers. There were not many yet, it’s still too early for them.

White Lotus with visitor.

White Lotus.

Lotus leaves. Note the two fishes at the bottom of the leaf on the left.

There were many dragonflies flying around the pond. The Eastern Amberwings darted here and there, their orange color contrasting sharply with the green lotus leaves.

Eastern Amberwing dragonfly.

From Flower to Seed

Tags

carnegie center, dragonfly, hosta, lotus, photography, postaday

Today I took a quick trip to the lotus pond in early morning, when it was still not too hot. The flowers were mostly gone, with fewer than a dozen left, like this one below.

White Lotus.

There were many pods, some filled with large seeds, right next to flower buds still trying to bloom.

Lotus seed pod.

Nearby, in deep shade, hosta flowers were in full bloom. The buds were white and a pale lavender at the tips.

Hosta flowers.

Finally, the dragonflies were as plentiful as ever. I tried to snap a few shots of some that were flying and buzzing around from end of the pond to the other, but nothing came out well. Finally, I had to settle for a stationery Blue Dasher basking in the warm sun.

Blue Dasher.

Monday Monochrome: Lotus

Tags

carnegie center, lotus, monochrome, photography, postaday

It’s been a month since my last trip to the lotus pond. I’ve been meaning to go back and take more pictures, but haven’t done so yet, mainly because it’s been so hot.

The following photo is a monochrome version of a shot taken last month. Since the flower is white, it lends itself easily to this b&w treatment.

Lotus flowers in monochrome.

White Lotus, Dragonfly

Tags

carnegie center, dragonfly, lotus, photography, postaday

At the height of summer, a trip to the lotus pond near our home has become an annual event for me. The pond is not too large but well maintained, endowed with many white and pink lotus flowers. There are plenty of shade trees around it to protect photographers from the sun and the heat. This morning, at the golden hour I went there and “owned” the pond for a half hour before others arrived. All of the flowers were white, as the pink ones usually bloom as much as two weeks later.

For the following photos I used two Canon lenses: a 180 mm macro lens and a 400 mm lens, both reputed to be among the sharpest lenses with excellent colors.

Lotus with a dragonfly clinging to it, and a bee hovering above it.

White lotus.

White Lotus and bud.

White Lotus, with reflections of red and orange flowers in background.

White Lotus.

White Lotusd petal.

White Lotus petal.

Dragonfly on Lotus leaf.

Lotus, Bees, and Dragonflies

Tags

blue dasher, carnegie center, dragonflye, eastern amberwing, lotus, photography, postaday

The Lotus flowers have started to bloom. This morning there were only two flowers that had opened up, but I still managed to take quite a few shots, especially with bees and dragonflies hovering and flitting near them.

White Lotus flower.

Bee aiming for core of Lotus flower.

Bee taking off after getting pollen from Lotus flower.

Blue Dasher dragonfly on Lotus leaf.

Eastern Amberwing dragonfly on Lotus leaf.

Blue Dasher on Lotus leaf.

Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Flowers

Tags

Cee's Black and White Photo Challenge: Flowers, lotus, photography, postaday

Cee has this B&W photo challenge: http://ceenphotography.com/2015/08/20/cees-black-white-photo-challenge-flowers/

I immediately thought about the flowers at the lotus pond that you may have seen in several of my previous posts. Here are some new shots rendered in monochrome.

Pink Lotus

The following are white lotuses.

White Lotus

White Lotus

White Lotus and bee

More Lotus Flowers

Tags

carnegie center, lotus, photography, postaday

This past weekend, the lotus pond only had a few lotus flowers that were not white. The red and pink lotuses provided a vivid and beautiful contrast to the white and green of the rest of the pond.

Red Lotus

Pink Lotus

Pink Lotus: the grasshopper was a bonus that I didn’t see at first.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Inspiration

Tags

daily post, edwin b forstythe national wildlife refuge, house finch, lotus, marsh mallow, nuthatch, photography, weekly photo challenge

These are my submissions for this challenge: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/inspiration/

The sources of my inspiration of course vary with the season and the location, but over time they tend to be mostly birds and flowers.

I took the following shot last month at my favorite location, the Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. It was raining so I took the picture through the open car window and the rain.

Rainbow over the Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.

Nuthatch, the Cyrano bird

White Lotus

Marsh Mallow

White Lotus Flowers II

Tags

carnegie center, lotus, photography, postaday, white lotus

Some more photos of white lotus flowers at a pond near home.

White Lotus

White Lotus: there are two bees hovering, and one more leaving way to the upper left of the image.

White Lotus bud

White Lotus monochrome

White Lotus Flowers

Tags

carnegie center, lotus, photography, postaday, white lotus

The lotus pond is only about five miles from our house. At the beginning of summer, it has mostly white flowers, and the red or pink ones don’t bloom until several weeks later. Yesterday the pond looked very green still, with not too many flowers.

Lotus pond

The bees of course were very busy and at times there were several on a single flower.

White Lotus and bee

White Lotus and two bees

White Lotus

A dilemma I have is that so many shots came out that were just as nice looking as the above. I didn’t want to clutter this page with too many shots, and thus slow down the display of this page. But if you want to see more of these white lotus photos, let me know in your comments and I’ll post some more on the next post.

White Lotus