Sunrise, Sunset, Surprise

Sunrise and sunset are prime time for photography. Light is soft and smooth. At this time of the year, sunrise is around 5:30am and sunset 8:30pm in our area.  I don’t usually get up that early for sunrise images unless I am on a photography retreat or on a vacation where we can have an ideal spot to view the scene. The dramatic rise and set of the sun from horizon happen in that five to ten minutes window. We need to have our camera gear more than ready to capture the dramatic moment. It is a luxury to be able in the right place at right time.

Morning Glory

This picture was taken early in the morning in the woods. The warm and fuzzy morning sun just began to embrace the earth and have us drowned in its glory.  In this shot, the sunlight was filtered through trees that created layers of monotone from white, gray to black. It looks to me that the trees were soaked with light and drunk in soothing pleasure.

In many cases, I was just passing through somewhere in the car. Camera is not accessible or it is ready but I am right in the middle of the freeway.  If I am fast enough to pull over at an exit, I may still get a shot if the location is open and angle of view is manageable. Sometimes, the sun was either up too high or disappeared from horizon by the time I found a place to stop.

The lesson taught me to just shoot regardless whenever an opportunity comes up and not to worry so much about photo quality.  If I don’t get a great shot, I at least have chance to examine the setting of my camera and learned from there what I can do better next time.  I am anxious to explore and to learn, but I know I cannot give myself too much pressure. I have to be carefree, take one step at a time.

On a trip back from a photography event, I was pleasantly tired and anxious to go home.  But when I spotted this post sunset sky, I was determined that I wanted to get off the next exit.  Luckily I was able to find a good angle for the shot, but it was pretty dark all around. I hand held my camera and bumped ISO up to 640 to shoot.  I could have raised ISO higher but I was concerned about the details of layers and colors.  I also did not remove electric pole and power lines as I always like them to be in the scene to be more realistic.

Sunset (Three Sisters are in the background)

I grew up in the city and now become a country folk. Believe or not, I have had very few experience taking trains. My first experience taking a train by myself was in Cologne, Germany at my 30’s. When I was young, I was gutsy. I did not speak German. I had not taken a train before by myself. I only had the address of a company that I planned to visit and talk business. I remember that I purchased a ticket and my seating was later claimed by the conductor that it is first class, and I had to pay him another $20 Dutch Mark (then about US$10).

On a trip to visit my daughter and grand children in Seattle, I took a train, my first experience (again) taking a train by myself in US. It was a 6:00am train. As I recall, sunrise was 6:42 am or so on that day. I found myself a seat on east side and started to figure out the settings. The train moved fast and the sky was dark, I definitely needed both shutter speed and ISO to accomplish the shot.  As sun started to shoot out its orange light from below the horizon, I started to shoot whenever I could find an open spot.

Train was moving and there were all kinds of barriers in front of my subject. I must have fired 30+ shots including when the sun was finally above horizon.  Most of the shots were very cluttered because of the various items existing within the distance, but I got couple OK shots. Because high ISO was used, some post processing to reduce the noise was necessary.  I was busy selecting better shots and reducing noise, and I did not realize that there were two suns hanging high in the sky, two of them. I was stunned and could not figure out why. My husband is the one, as usual, to come up the logic answer for me.

Sunrise

I was sitting inside the train by the window. Window is composed of two layers of glass panels. The sunlight was first hitting inside panel of the window in an angle (from high to low) and bounced back through outer panel of the glass (from low to high). My smart camera has caught both Suns, the reflected one was dimmer and higher than the real one.  Does this make any sense? You may have better answers. Please feel free to chime in.

I am not writing mystery fictions, I am unfolding mysteries in our nature.

More Mystery Unfolded

I belong to baby boomer’s generation. When I was going to school, only elementary school is mandatory. We had to go through entrance examinations in order to be accepted to middle school, high school and college. As I can remember, we studied hard at middle school in order that we can hang on to a good high school. Once we entered high school, homework and extra study take possession of our life. We study, study and study, day and night, from early dawn to midnight. Our common goal is to get into a reputable university and that will set the path of our future career. Once you have a good career then your life is half made. This was the mainstream culture. 

Unlike high school, college education is more directional and more specific. I was a literature student and have not paid attention to science. My knowledge and common sense in botany are intimately related to what I learned in high school, and what I can remember now. I believe that I have studied everything about flowers in biology class, but I was a city girl and I have witnessed little what I learned in school. Going through so many examinations, I had all things stored in my brain and they gradually vanished throughout the years.

Now I am living in the enchanting green acre land, I so fall in love with nature and the continuous discovery has drawn me back to study botany. Last week I discovered stigma and stamen and this week I have been looking for them in all flowers that I encountered. However, some of them just do not have the mystery center that I was going after. I was growing more curious. It bugged me when my question is not answered. So I researched online and found out something interesting and I am compelled to share with you. But I am only touching the surface. I don’t intend to go in deep with  biology. I want to focus the purpose of my blog, photography.

There are so-called Perfect Flowers and Imperfect Flowers… As stated last week, stigma is the female organ of flowers. Stigma actually means only the tip end of the whole carpel which contains Stigma, Style (the slender string-like portion) and Ovary (at the base of carpel) where eggs are stored. Stamen is the part which produces pollen. Stamen is composed of two parts, a filament and anther.  Anther is the sac located at the tip end of the filament and filament is the stalk that connects to the anther and support the anther. Pollen is what attracts insects (see where the bug bites below). When the pollen is released, it falls to the area above the ovary and a new life is created.

I am showing a few images below to distinguish Perfect Flowers from Imperfect Flowers. The first group of flowers are prefect flowers while the second group of flowers are imperfect flowers.

Stigma and stamen combined is to provide plants reproductive function. Perfect flower is the flower with both in it. The flower can complete its own pollination and production process for new growth. Imperfect flower is the flower has only either stigma or stamen, and it relies on insects or wind to transport pollen from other flowers and helps the imperfect flower to perform its reproduction. 

I don’t remember if I ever learned this in school, but it is certainly intriquing. I am happy that I am catching up what I have not known or simply don’t remember. 

Group A Perfect Flowers,

Group B are imperfect flowers. I don’t know if they have only stigma or stamen, but they apparently have only one of the two. I have hard time to call this stunning red flower imperfect. Maybe that's why I am not so good at biology....

Discovery Friday

I love to take close-up flower pictures. When I go to nursery to purchase flower plants, I chose the ones with attractive details, or the ones I think would make a good image. Unfortunately I don’t have a green thumb and my plan does not always work out. Plus, the bugger squirrels have been trespassing.

Among all things growing in my yard, rhododendrons are the one grow year after year as long as they are fertilized. They are everywhere in Oregon that not many people here think they are special. Their flowers are beautiful, but it is hard to get clean and crisp shots from them because the large blossoms (combination of small flowers) are too big for close-ups. The small flowers do not have intricate and mysterious center, not interesting enough, that’s what I thought earlier.  I have at least 8 rhododendron bushes, but I have never thought about to photograph them.

Today I suddenly had a thought. I should give myself a challenge to shoot anyway regardless I like it or not.  I should look at them from different angles and see what I can get out of it. Creative process is an experimental process. Just give it a try, who knows what will happen.

It is a mostly-cloudy day. Sun came up every once a while and stay for a very short time. Immediately when I set up my tripod, it went away.  Then, it started to rain. I didn’t want my camera to get wet, so I packed up and went inside the house.  Not long when I came back to my computer, I saw bright sunlight.  A whole day of playing hide-n-seek with Sun, I got a few shots. I wish they are better, but I am content. I have stepped out to take their pictures for my new experiment. And, look what I found? The distinguished stigma (fuchsia color, on the very left). The white color heads are stamen.

stigma (fuchsia color), stamen (white)

I cannot believe that I have been photographing flower stigma, but I have never known that stigma and stamen are co-existing in the flower and they look different. If I did not give myself this task to shoot rhododendron today, I would never disclose this mystery to myself.

This discovery really get me interested to look at the center of the peony shots I just took last week. The images explain clearly which is stigma and which is stamen.  Female appears to be more distinctive than male in flower world.

stigma (onion like), stamen (yellow)

stigma (pink, in the center), stamen (yellow)

PS. All these flowers have stunning colors. I have added textures to tone them down. Peony is admired
as "Flowers of Richness"( 富貴花) in my original culture.