On the Same Level With Nature - Up Close and Personal

What a beautiful day! Seriously - it was so amazing outside today.

Too bad I was in the office all day (except for the few minutes I ran out for lunch and actually got to feel the sun on my face from the office to the car, the car to the store, and you get the picture!). The dashboard thermometer read 86 degrees and that was shocking to me!

This is the time of the year where I truly feel like I come alive. When I get out of the office at night it's like I'm "released!" and "full of the power of spring"!! On spring days like this I tie my hair back, roll down the windows, and open the sun roof when I drive. I can't get enough of that warm spring wind all around me. Don't you know that feeling??

Okay, sometimes I try to contain my true silliness on my blog and keep it to pretty professional "talk" but I think it's okay to post how something made you feel alive and how it inspired you.

Well...with that said...today the feeling was like ---> I wanted to find large open field and just run through it barefoot with my hair flowing in the breeze!!

Sound strange, corny, weird? I doubt it you'd think that...come on! admit it! I'm sure you've had visions of running through a beautiful open field, feeling the sun on your face, while your hair blows in the breeze (well skip the hair blowing in the breeze if you're a guy and you don't have flowing hair LOL).

This is the time of the year where it's not burning hot and you can feel spring physically and mentally (I think that's why they call it "SPRING FEVER" LOL!) and you just can't wait to be outside.

Unfortunately I wasn't dressed for the occasion for running through any fields with my "work clothes" and high heeled boots on LOL! (Imagine the site as I'm running and go tumbling down in my boots!)

So, I settled for another day of getting VERY Close and personal with nature by using (only) my Nikon 105mm f/2.8G VR AF-S lens and shooting some macros at the park I frequently visit on my way home.





Macro is a whole other world...you are literally a foot away from your subject, up close and personal and certainly on the same level with your subject. I wasn't perfectly dressed for this either - but did happen to remember that I have a spare pair of sneakers in my trunk and a padding thing to kneel on!





This session was even more fruitful then the last one in terms of variety. I headed over to the rose garden section of the park (this place is huge) and I set up for getting close to the flowers by lowering the tripod as low as it would go. I made a note to bring my Gorilla Pod next time and see if it can support the weight of this lens. It's hard to get close w/ a full size tripod so that option may work!




Most of these ended up being hand-held and required a lot of squatting! I guess you can say I am getting my workouts! Photography+toning the legs? Can't beat that!

Enjoy!

At The Park Today

I stopped at the park for a little while on the way home today to capture the most beautiful day with a beautiful sky...full of amazing clouds!

I started with some HDR shots with my Nikon 18-200mm VR.

WHen I was here I felt like I was walking throuhg a Fairy Tale!







And then I switched to my Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF-S Micro Lens to give it a run for it's money!

I'm trying to get the hang of shooting REALLY close with the lens to get that really abstract-y look for flower photography.

The hardest part was focusing on the flowers when the wind kept blowing (Grrrrrrrrr!) AND I was using a tripod! So many were sent to the recycle bin when I got home but these were the ones that I kept that I loved!!

The ones that appealed to me most today were the very abstract flower shots below. I just feel like they would make great abstract art pieces to hang on the wall.







A little more realistic macros for you:





What a beautiful day to be out and about! I need to go back though and keep practiing and practicing these abstract macros. The focus is the hardest part!

Macros of My Backyard

I got outside after work today for a little while today before the sun went down to practice my macro photography with my fairly new Nikon 105mm VR and I took the following series of photos below with the lens (lens info & reviews found at the bottom of the post).

Before I got started I noticed a little friend peering through the fence at me. It's my dog's "girlfriend" Taffy. They run up and down the fenceline canoodling anytime they are both out at the same time which cracks me up. I quickly fired off a shot of her with the Macro lens. I think it came out pretty sharp! I printed a copy to give to my neighbors. :)







Now don't be gossed out but Lucas was my sidekick on my backyard adventure tonight...and I was trying to get his cute nose but ended up with this while he was yawning...I wasn't going to share...but I just had to:



Then I became infatuated by this rusty nail in my tree...

It was the hard to get this thing in focus how I wanted...





More rust...and the strangest DOF...







and then I got into some textures:



















The 105mm lens is great!

Buythom.com had a very thorough review of the lens that I found exremely helpful and helped me to really understand the use of the lens.

Nikon Micro 105mm VR Sample Gallery on Pbase.com.

DPReview site gives a full overview of the lens.