Springtime photography….is April the best month? It seems like that might be true this year. The photographs were taken at the Springfield Botanical Gardens, my yard, the Missouri State University Campus, my daughter’s yard, Onondaga Cave, and 2 volunteer activities. There were so many images to choose from; I selected 23. I used three different cameras – iPhone 15 Pro Max, Canon Powershot SX730 HS, and Nikon Coolpix P950. Enjoy the slideshow!
I selected 22 images for this month’s zooming post. 7 were taken during our road trip to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge (going through Kansas City), 5 during the road trip to the Orchid Show (St. Louis), 5 at home, 3 during a hike at Cedar Gap Conservation Area, and 2 in Dallas. March was a good month to be out and about…typical for early spring!
There seems to be more going on this winter than usual. Most of the pictures I selected to represent February were taken within a 100-mile radius of home in Nixa MO…except for a few at the Josey Ranch ponds in Carrollton TX. There were some warm days…and some snow. Some of the bulbs are coming up --- growing slowing in the still frigid temperatures that keep coming. Enjoy the February slideshow!
January was a busy month but not one that included any big photography opportunities! My selections for zoomed images this month have some themes: sunrise/sunset, snow, birds, and lights. They are mostly from Missouri (although there are two that are left over from my trip to New Mexico in December that I didn’t post about until January). Enjoy the photographic mosaic.
20 images – using the camera’s zoom to fill the frame. The moon in a dark sky, sandhill cranes at sunset, a Japanese lantern with yellow ginkgo leaves around its base. There are lots of favorites in this set for me.
Themes for the zoomed images of December: fall/winter and birds.
Locations: Springfield, Missouri and Socorro, New Mexico.
On one of the mornings I had an early Physical Therapy appointment, the temperature was in the teens and sunny. When I parked, I noticed the car parked next to me had frost on all its non-vertical surfaces. I couldn’t resist taking a few pictures with my phone!
A little magnification made the variations in the crystals more visible. Some looked like feathers, others like brittle stars from the sea. In some places the crystals had become so dense that they became an aggregate. The sun was beginning to melt some of the crystals; I thought about why some areas were melting and others were not.
A few seconds of photography and I hurried into the building feeling grateful for the little bit of creative time – one of my favorite ways to start the day.
The zooming images for November are mostly a celebration of fall in our area of Missouri. There are a few animals in the group that could have happened at other times – a robin bathing in a stream, a grackle at our feeder, and a small red-eared slider in our neighborhood pond.
Can you find the poison ivy seeds (hint…they are white), the glorious fall Virginia creeper, a chestnut husk, 4 kinds of oak, and a maple?
I enjoyed searching out little bits of nature to photograph…fill frame…using my camera to ‘see’ better than I do with just my eyes. My camera’s optics are the great enabler!
All the pictures in the slideshow were taken in the Springfield Missouri area: my home, the Missouri State campus, Lake Springfield, Busiek State Forest…the majority were during Missouri Master Naturalist or Identifying Wood Plants class field trips! October was a great month for being outdoors. Enjoy the slideshow of zoomed images!
Lots of photography done since my last Zooming post. There was travel to Arkansas and Texas…and then the classes (Missouri Master Naturalist and Identifying Woody Plants at a local university). I’ve used all three of my cameras this month: Canon Powershot SX70 HS (bridge), Canon Powershot SX730 HS (point and shot) and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
September has been a busy month, and I am still trying to settle into the higher level of activity away from home! Enjoy the slide show for September 2024….
As I reviewed my group of zoomed images from July, the favorite subjects of the month emerged: hot air balloons, animals (birds, butterflies, a squirrel), museum and monuments, and (of course) plants dominated by flowers. The places included areas close to home, Springfield Botanical Garden, Oklahoma City (First American’s Museum and Oklahoma City National Memorial), Tulsa (Philbook Museum), and Joplin (Wildcat Glades)
The hot air balloons are from a Balloon Glow event. They didn’t leave the ground!
I enjoyed the pottery room and garden structures at the Philbrook, the light of late afternoon as I walked around the Oklahoma City National Memorial, and the wall art in the First Americans Museum).
Animals included a robin, a green heron, a skipper, a swallowtail (not sure what kind), a fox squirrel, and a juvenile male mallard.
And then there were plants. Most were flowers but there were seeds (dandelion puff), a pine cone, and olorful new redbud leaves.
It was a good month for photography and being outdoors. Only the pot and the wall art are indoor images.
Lots of opportunities to capture images of some of my favorite subjects in June 2024: big cats, birds, butterflies, and (of course) flowers. Some were close to home (Dickerson Park Zoo, Lake Springfield Boathouse) while others were from our two days in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
Big cats. The animals are obviously in some kind of enclosure. The cheetah at the Dickerson Park Zoo was photographed from a high deck over the enclosure…maxing out the zoom capability of my camera; it was the only one that did not have a fence between me and the cat! The other three images had the fence challenge; it is most visible in the lion image. It’s always a little unnerving to realize that a tiger, even looking very relaxed, is following me with his eyes!
Birds. I always see birds the best after I get home and look at my images on a big monitor. The optics of the camera allow me to get very close views without being close to the bird! The peacock (head and feet) images were taken at Dickerson Park Zoo and the bluebird and purple martin were near the Lake Springfield Boathouse.
Butterflies. The three butterflies on rocks were taken in the parking area of the Eureka Springs & Northern Arkansas Railway. The insects were fluttering around looking for moisture. The butterfly on a flower was in the meadow near the Lake Springfield Boathouse. Butterflies are as challenging to photograph as birds, but it does help to keep a distance. If the insects are on a flower or looking for moisture, they might sit for long enough to capture an image; sometimes a little bit cooler temperatures help too.
Other wildlife. The lizard shedding its skin must have been terrified of the people walking on the boardwalk; it would have felt the vibration. We stood back once we realized it was there…and I got my picture. The same was true of the cicada although it flew to the post (I saw it in the air and followed with my camera already zooming) and then flew again within about 30 seconds.
Flowers. And then there are flowers. I love to take pictures of flowers filling the frame. I like that using the zoom blurs the background – often to various shades of green. Depending on the light, the background can also go black (the leaf on a vine). My strategy it to capture the ‘as is’ in a way that appeals to me. The blade of grass almost like a pointer to one of the stamens in the day lily image was a bit of serendipity!
As we near the end of the month – I am savoring these zoomed images!
After collecting the images I wanted to feature this month, there seemed to be more distinct reasons for why the amount of zoom was used.
One image – from the Anthony Chapel at Garvan Woodland Gardens – was composed to capture the pattern of glass in the ceiling.
5 images were composed to get a near macro view of flowers and water droplets without being very close to the subjects.
The zoom was used to fill the frame in 8 of the images. It works in almost every situation! Flowers and landscapes with structures outdoors as well as museums and nature center exhibits are seen below.
Probably the rationale for zooming I enjoy the most is when the camera allows me to ‘see’ better than I would with just my eyes. There are 7 images in this category this month: a close up of a peacock and some flamingo feathers at Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Missouri; tiling on a bathhouse dome and a magnolia flower in a large tree overhanging the street in Hot Springs, Arkansas; an ebony jewelwing on a fern, a fairy house and a Ouachita Map Turtle at Garvan Woodland Gardens.
Sometimes I remember the rules and zoom to position the subject along one of the lines…to the left or right of center in lieu of switching to a portrait orientation and filling the frame.
I am savoring my favorite zoomed images of May 2024.
Last weekend the Springfield Botanical Gardens hosted a festival along with sister cities in Mexico and Japan – a Kite and Pinata Festival. It was well attended. There were people directing traffic into the garden when we got there, and we were pleased that we found a good parking place. There were already kites in the air! It was a sunny breezy day, perfect weather for the event.
There were food trucks and vendors. My daughter and I shared an anpan (a Japanese sweet roll filled with red bean paste)…tasty. I bought some Japanese earrings as well.
I noticed a new sculpture near the visitor center and took a picture of the butterfly part of it.
We walked around enough to notice the tulips were still blooming and couldn’t resist photographing them. I like the ones that are multi-colored. The ones with more than the usual petals seemed to be popular this year. I liked the yellow tulips with splashes of red/orange the best.
There was a dogwood in bloom. The wind made it challenging to photograph the blooms. I used the zoom; the light was so bright that the shutter speed was short enough to freeze the moving flowers!
There was a small stage where Mexican and Japanese themed performances were featured. The teenage girls performed well with mariachi band even in the wind…their colorful skirts attached to their wrists to keep them more controlled than the cowgirl dancers that kept loosing their hats.
Back at the visitor center, I checked their collection of hens and chicks. The colonies have survived the winter, and their colors are probably more vivid because of the cold.
We walked back to our car via the white garden and hosta garden.
I noticed the dragonfly mosaic is missing some pieces. I hope it will be repaired.
It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning. We opted to go to a restaurant for lunch because the wind, great for kites, was a bit gusty for eating outside.
Lots of birds in the Zooming slide show this month – from the Whooping Crane Festival in south Texas as well as Josey Ranch (Carrollton TX), the Springfield Botanical Gardens (Springfield MO) and Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge (near Sherman TX). I find myself picking images that show bird behavior rather than portraits.
There are spring flowers in this collection as well…more of those coming in April!
Enjoy the March 2024 slide show!
It’s been a busy month with 2 trips to Texas and then a flurry of activity when I was home in Missouri. I tried to take breaks for photography…even if they were very short! There are pictures from my parents’ house in Carrollton that has been sold, Josey Ranch in Carrollton, Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge, and snow at home. Enjoy the February 2024 slideshow!
January was a very light month for photography; I was recovering from the stress of being away from home and made 2 short trips to Carrollton very focused on helping my parents adjust to their new home and preparing to sell the house they had lived in for over 30 years. Even with fewer images to select from – I savor the 9 selected as the best for the month: birds and snow and sunrises….and a surprised flower (taken near the end of December just as the first hard freeze was sending the Carrollton TX area into winter). Enjoy the January 2024 slideshow!
There was not as much time for photography this past month; I am combining macro (getting close) and zoomed (optical magnification) images in this post.
The macro images go first. The yellow cosmos were part of a small bouquet I cut and put in mini-vase for the middle of my parents’ breakfast table. They enjoyed the enlarged view that I showed them just after I photographed them. The leaves are probably the last new ones of the season on a rose bush that has been blooming next to their garage for over 30 years!
The leaves on a millet plant (came up under the bird feeder!) are interesting as they begin their end-of-season decline.
The zoomed images for December included some birds and plants at Josey Ranch, fall foliage, and zoomed images of glass orbs in yard art…the last flowers in the garden.
In the coming months – the stainless steel iris will be the highlight of the garden!
In the coming months – the stainless steel iris will be the highlight of the garden!
November 2023 was a month of contrasts…an increase in day trips (to the Springfield Botanical Garden and Butterfly Palace in Branson) and then the more confined views while a parent was in the hospital/recovering at home. Photography is something I enjoy in almost every circumstance. I am either trying to capture a moment or create an artistic composition. And the zoom feature on my cameras are almost always used!
Copyright © 2025, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
Celebrating the whole of life....
Thanks for visiting my blog! Enjoy the photo picks from last month:
Copyright © 2024, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
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