A Few More Pumpkins

In addition to the Cornucopia displayp, and all the wonderful carved pumpkins, I also photographed several other groups of pumpkins on a recent trip to Longwood Gardens. Located throughout the gardens, each display contained multiple varieties of pumpkins, squashes and gourdes of every imaginable shape and size.

This grouping was located near the rose garden. I don’t know about you – but I’d love to know just how much the pumpkin on the right weighs.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Here’s a detailed photo of some of pumpkins in this display. I liked the combination of the orange pumpkin, the yellow chrysanthemums and the hay.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Here are a few of the pumpkins on display near the Idea Garden.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

A group of pumpkins piled up against the bales of hay in the Children’s Garden.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally, some from a display near the Conservatory. I really liked the contrast in colors between the two similarly shaped pumpkins.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I really enjoyed photographing the pumpkin displays a t Longwood Gardens this year – and can’t wait to see what they come up with next year.

Photography Links – October 30, 2009

Bread Poppy (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

 

A few links this week

Guy Tal has Masters Don’t Tweak

DIYPhotography has Band your Cables for Orderly Photography Travel

Newsweek has a slideshow of Prokudin-Gorskii’s Color Photos of Russia from 1907 to 1915

Jim Goldstein is holding a Lens Rental Giveaway from BorrowLenses.com

DPS has 5 Tips for Photographing Children

And another link to the most effective DMCA takedown notice I’ve found - Using the DMCA Takedown Notice to Battle Copyright Infringment – the info on identifying where blogs are hosted really helped this week. I’ve been dealing with someone who has posted 60 of my posts on his blog without permission.

Lots of Changes

As you’ve probably noticed, there have been lots of changes to this blog over the past few months.

Several months ago, Bill and I realized that our photography was going in two different directions – and that we were both getting frustrated trying to merge our photos into one collection that worked well together on our website and at shows.  So we decided it was time for our photographs to go their separate ways. For those of you who know us – don’t worry – our marriage is fine – it’s just our photos that have separated.

Eyeliner Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I realized that flowers are what I love to photograph. I’m fascinated by all the colors, shapes, textures and varieties. I’m discovering all the wonderful wildflower and their native environments. This year, I’ve made numerous trips to local botanical gardens and parks, as well as traveling literally up and down the East Coast from Maine to Florida to the Smoky Mountains to photograph the wildflowers. I’ve never been happier in my life than I am these days photographing flowers.

In May, I launched my new website BeautifulFlowerPictures.com and began doing shows with just my flower photographs. All of my photographs are presented as gallery wrapped canvases. They allow you to create an indoor garden that will bloom year round in your home. Some of my photos are also available as notecards. I will be showing my photographs at two more shows this year – the Craftsmen’s Classic Art & Craft Show in Richmond, VA on November 6-8 and the Fairfax Holiday show in Fairfax, VA on November 21-22.

Zabriskie Dawn (c) 2009 William Lawrence

Bill has always been a grand landscape photographer at heart. He loves to show the subject of his photography in the context of its environment. He creates photographs with sweeping expanses of sky and earth to accentuate the beauty of the scene. He prefers to use his large format camera. It allows him to slow down and see more clearly and deeply into the interrelationships of all the elements in the scene.

This past weekend, Bill launched his new blog – Lawrence’s View and introduced his first new photograph Zabriskie Dawn. His new photographs will be presented as limited editions of no more than 100. His work will be be printed on Hahnemuhle Photorag 308 gsm paper. He planning on introducing his photographs on his new blog, as well as sharing his thoughts on photography. You can subscribe to his blog by email or in a reader using his RSS feed.

Bill’s new photographs (and a few of his older ones) will be available at the Fairfax Holiday Show in Fairfax, VA on November 21-22.

Since Bill now his own blog, and I’ve been posting mainly my photography here for the past few months – I renamed this blog this morning to Beautiful Flower Pictures Blog. The change doesn’t affect subscriptions by either email or RSS feed. They should continue to work just as they always have. You can access my blog at the current URL of http://hankinslawrenceimages.wordpress.com/ or through it’s new name of BeautifulFlowerpicturesBlog.com I’ll still be posting my flower photographs, an occasional landscape photo, and my regular Friday links posts.

Bill and I have always appreciated all the enouragement and support we’ve gotten from our readers for our photography. We invite you to come along on our photographic journeys as we share our work through our Beautiful Flowers Pictures and Lawrence’s View blogs.

Fragrant Ladies’ Tresses – Spiranthes odorata

While exploring the Conservatory at Longwood Gardens on a recent visit, I was amazed to come across some Fragrant Ladies’ Tresses (Spiranthes odorata) growing beneath the ferns. Ladies’ Tresses are a native orchid, which I’ve never seen growing indoors. They are a fall blooming orchid – that can grow from Eastern Canada and south along the East Coast of the US.

This first photo – taken in the Longwood Conservatory – shows the plants with some blossoms flowering, and some not yet open. It gives a nice view of the structure of the plant.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Later the same day, as I was photographing some of the leaves in Pierce’s Woods at Longwood Gardens, I spotted a few Fragrant Ladies’ Tresses growing under some trees and along the stream. As I looked more closely – I discovered there were several groups and even a few large patches of the native orchids growing in the same area. Here are some of my favorite photos of the Fragrant Ladies’ Tresses.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

A few closeup photos showing details of the plants

Two stalks with a full set of blossoms

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

One of the blossoms

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

View from above showing the spiral stalk and flower pattern

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

As I was photographing one last set of Ladies’ Tresses, a large bee flew over and started exploring the plants. One of the Longwood’s educational themes this year has been pollinators – this bee certainly was paying attention and was busy polinating the flowers while searching for nectar.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Finding and photographing the Fragrant Ladies’ Tresses was definitely one of the highlights of my visit to Longwood Gardens. Now that I know what they look like, and where they’re likely to be growing, I’ll keep my eye out for more of these wonderful native orchids.

Carved Pumpkins at Longwood Gardens

Last week, I saw the most amazing carved pumpkins at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. I believe the pumpkins will be on display until the end of the month. The intricate details of the carvings just have to be seen to be believed. If you get a chance – be sure to check them out if you can get to Longwood before they take down the pumpkins.

Here are a few of my favorite carved pumpkin photos.

Flowers at Longwood Gardens

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Frankenstein’s monster

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

A butterfly in flight

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

A rabbit

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

A frog

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally, some of the local scenery.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Cornucopia

Last week, I spent most of a day photographing at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. I’d gone up expecting to spend my day photographing the chrysanthemums – which were lovely. You can imagine my surprise when I realized that what I was spending most of my time photographing was the pumpkins! I had seen the Christmas display at Longwood last year, so I knew they did wonderful things for the holidays. They also do a wonderful job of capturing the colors of autumn.

My favorite autumn display was the giant Cornucopia in front of the Dupont House. It’s a classic woven horn of plenty, with lots of pumpkins, squashes and gourds spilling out.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

The display provided wonderful opportunities for photographing combinations of fall produce. Here are some of my favorite photos of parts of the display.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I never realized there were so many shapes, colors and textures of pumpkins, squashes and gourds. And while I’m sure the staff at Longwood Gardens can identify what all these are – I have no clue what varieties any of them are.

The Autumn’s Colors and Chrysanthemum Festival run through November 22 at Longwood Gardens.  I know I’m planning on heading back up to see more of the exhibit soon. If you get a chance, it’s well worth visiting this wonderful display at Longwood.

Photography Links – October 23, 2009

Just a few links this week -

Virtual Photograph Studio has 10 Ways to Use Flickr to Market Your Photography Business

Stepforth and Be Found has How to Optimize for Google Images – 10 Tips

Photofocus has 10 Ways to Improve Your Photography Without Buying Gear

ASMP has launched a public education campaign – Don’t Screw Us

Photo Business News has information on Shepard Fairey vs. AP case and Re-Tooling the Message of Content Protection

Luminous-Landscape has a First Look at the Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta

And another link to the most effective DMCA takedown notice I’ve found - Using the DMCA Takedown Notice to Battle Copyright Infringment – I had to use it again this week.

Red and Green Peppers

One of the things I discovered while I was photographing the pepper collection at the National Arboretum was the wonderful variety of shapes and colors of peppers there are. Some of the most striking ones were either red or green.

The first set I photographed were just labeled Capiscum Pepper without any info about the specific variety. I really like the dark green of the peppers contrasting with the light green of the leaves.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

The Bishop’s Cap Peppers have an amazing shape. They were a challenge to photograph – I wanted to show the shape while controlling the shine of the pepper skin.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally the Fish Peppers – they start out as a striped pepper in shades of green – and turn to red as they ripen.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Fish Peppers (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I’ll be posting the last few pepper photos from this year in a few days. It’s been great fun photographing them – and I’m looking forward to discovering more varieties next year.

Variegated Toad Lilies

A couple weeks ago, I posted some photos of a Sinome Toad Lily that I photographed at Green Spring Garden in Alexandria, Virginia. I photographed a second toad lily that same morning – a Variegated Toad Lily (Tricyrtis hirta variegata).

Like the Sinome Toad Lily, the variegated toad lily is a shade loving plant that blooms in late summer to early fall. It is native to Asia.

Here are a group of blossoms along one of the stalks of the plant.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

A cluster of blossoms

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally – some single blossoms that show the incredible structure of these flowers.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

The toad lilies are amazing complex flowers. They kind of make me wish I had a place for some shade loving perennials in my yard. I think they’d make a neat addition to a shade garden.

Chinese Five Color Peppers

One of the varieties of peppers that I’ve photographed this fall are the Chinese Five Color Peppers – also known as Chinese Multi-Color Peppers. They are a variety of capiscum annuum. Originally from China, these peppers are edible – and very hot! As the peppers ripen, they change color from purple to cream to yellow to orange to red.

The first Chinese Five Color Pepper plant I photographed was at Longwood Gardens. Here’s a group of fully ripe red peppers.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And a plant with all five colors of peppers

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

A few weeks later, I photographed another set of Chinese Five Color Peppers at the National Arboretum in Washington DC. The ones at the Arboretum are part of the Pepper Collection.

A cluster of purple peppers, with a few that have already changed color

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

This group has several that are in the processes of changing colors as they ripen.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally, a  group of peppers of all colors growing on one of the larger pepper plants.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins