X is for Xanthorrhoea

Commonly known as a Grass Tree but in this Alphabet Challenge x’s are hard to come by. In my younger days they were called Black Boys but that is now considered offensive.
As Covid-19 restrictions are gradually being eased it is great to be able to catch up with friends and go and take photos. We do really well with the Social Distancing until we slip into the old habit of ‘chimping’ our photos and sharing our results. Which in laymans terms means looking at the photo on the back of the camera and comparing our shots. Which means you have to get closer than 1.5m. Ahh, the things we took for granted.
I’ve chosen one image for the Alphabet Challenge and added the others into a slideshow because it was such an interesting plant to photograph (if you like abstract images). This one wasn’t flowering otherwise there’d be a stack more photos!.
I’ll share some other photos from Maranoa Gardens, where I found this beauty, in another post.

W is for Wish

I had a model lined up to blow the dandelion to make a wish but he had homework to do. I was in a bit of a crappy mood for no particular reason so i went for a walk and found a few dandelions and was playing around with placing them in front of the sun and then my battery died and despite having a spare with me every day for the last however many weeks, this day I didn’t. So I carried a few dandelions home and then they started to fall apart and I thought I’d scrap the idea and come up with something else. I stuck them in a vase on the kitchen bench and sat at the kitchen table to wait for the kettle to boil. I glared at the dandelions accusingly, as if it was their fault I was in a crappy mood, and all they did was look whimsical and dreamy with the kitchen light behind them so I picked up the camera and this is what I got. I was dodging all sorts of things in the kitchen behind them but love the colours and the creamy bokeh. I think it matches the mystical world of making wishes.

Fuji X-T2 60mm
ISO 400 - f/4 — 1/50sec Handheld.

I might keep an eye out for some more dandelions so I can make a series as I love the dreamy look of this.

Dandelion wish.

V is for Violets

I scrounged a few meagre violets from along the side of someones driveway while I was out walking. When I came home this wine glass with water in it was sitting on the bench, leftover from the night before when I was trying to manage the ISO alcohol consumption levels by have a BFD (Booze Free Day). I figure if you’re going to drink water instead of wine there’s nothing to say you can’t still use a wine glass. Anyway, that has nothing to do with the photo other than the wine glass was sitting on the bench and I popped the Violets in the water to keep them alive until I figured out how I was going to photograph them. As I looked at the Violets waiting for divine inspiration to hit me, I thought they looked quite cute in the wine glass and I remembered seeing some refraction shots where light bends and creates cool leffects and ‘voila! Bob’s your Aunty’ or some thing like that.

I would have liked to play around with flash but all my flash triggers are locked in a cupboard at RMIT and I can’t get access in the lockdown, so window light it was. Managing reflections on the glass (using black card) while still trying to keep light on the flowers was a bit of a bother. This also affected the overall exposure which also affected the colour of the cardboard in the background. It’s far from perfect but it’s good enough for an Alphabet Challenge.

I bought a vase at an Op Shop last week (you’ve no idea how excited I was to see an Op Shop open!) so I also did a Violets in a Vase shot because I feel like I get double points for alliteration in my art.

Fuji X-T2
ISO 200 - 60mm - F/5.6 - 0.9sec

U is for

Umbrella.
It seemed like it had been raining forever, but the day I wanted to take an umbrella photo there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. So, fake rain to the rescue.

T is for ...

Time for Tea with Tim Tams and tealights on a timber tray

Fuji X-T2 18-55mm
ISO 400 35mm f/16 1sec
Window light on left, candle light with a hint of tungsten light coming from the right.

Comments: Does it make me a realist or a pragmatist or just a stick in the mud to struggle with the visual need to have the fabric draped to create folds for visual appeal when there’s not a chance in hell you’d ever place a tablecloth that way in real life?
Anyway, best tip (again) is to always photograph food you like to eat (towards the end of this shoot there was nothing but crumbs left to photograph! )

Tea Time Still Life

S is for ...

Scissors and string and a spoon full of spice, with a splash of spring onion on the side.

Shot late at night in the kitchen with an ordinary desk lamp. Background is some old boards I rescued from rotting in the garden.
FUji X-T2 - ISO 800 - 60mm - f/4 - 1/50sec