Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: iris

Bearded Iris usually blooms from late April through early June in southern Oregon, so when Steve and I visited the Harry & David public garden in April, their lovely bed of iris was just showing off the first blossoms, with most were still in bud. I loved the way these petals looked like spirals.

(+1 in a note above) Bearded Irises are ridiculously beautiful! They are ALSO not the easiest subject to photograph, so I was very excited when I got the opportunity to practice my skills a few years ago. Steve and I got to visit a friend's property, where she and her husband planted literally 100's upon 100's of bearded and other iris species over many acres. I was not prepared for the variety and colors that I found there that day! I learned so much about the distance to stand from an iris, the background for good contrast, and how far subjects in the background should be to create the bokeh I was after. I left that day, so happy and totally in love with these incredible flowers! :)

15 more pictures above in notes! Over the past year, I have accumulated a massive library of photography, as I created pictures every day for my 365 project. Almost without exception, I got several--if not dozens upon dozens--of images that I wanted badly to process and share, but could not due to time constrains. I hoped that at some point I could revisit some of these pictures and give some a moment to shine. This beautiful iris was photographed at a friend's estate last May, where she and her husband have planted countless irises all over the many acres around their home. We were invited to spend the day taking pictures and I found myself overcome by the variety and stunning colors of the countless irises in bloom there. Today I will be sharing just this one spectacular blossom, but I've processed many others, which I'll upload at a later date. I'm so happy to showcase one of these flowers for my A-Z project!! By the way, on that day, we arrived home very late, after a lovely dinner with them, and I had to process one of the very first pictures I took because I could not spend the time to look through the many hundreds of pictures I took that day! You will see that picture above in a note, as well as the other pictures I had time to process from my visit. I never even touched the iris pictures because there were far too many to look at and I wanted to take the time to look at them carefully. Enjoy the show! :) Explored on April 11, 2014. Highest placement, #1.

Here you can see some of the of the perfectly round droplets I was talking about. Natural waterproofing! :D I added a touch of canvas texturing and soft vignetting to the background.

5 more pictures above in notes! I like the difference in sizes of droplets in this image, the large droplet looks like a drop of clear gel! :D I thought it would be fun to put all of my wild iris leaf droplet shots all together, so be sure to move your cursor over the image to see the others. You will see that the images from last year are really special! :) I added a bit of canvas texture to the background along with a very subtle touch of one of Jerry Jone's textures: Soft-Faux-n-Grunge-Bokeh -7-18-09-TOTD # 11

The traditional iris bulbs I planted in fall are all opening now and they are so pretty and varied in color! Pure white, white with yellow throats like this one, blue with yellow throats, and I think there will be pure yellow ones as well and maybe others! Such a lovely show! Here I tried to capture the morning sun glowing through one of the petals with the rest of the flower fading away into bokeh. It was fun trying to get this picture just right, from what I visualized and then trying different angles and exposures to get the effect that I was after. It's wonderful to slowly learn how to get what I'm hoping for! Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (born 15 October 1931) usually referred to as Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, is an Indian scientist and administrator who served as the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007. Kalam was born and raised in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, studied physics at the St. Joseph's College, Tiruchirappalli, and aerospace engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology (MIT), Chennai. Wikipedia: Abdul Kalam

It rained late last night until this morning, and I had such a fantastic time taking pictures of droplet-covered flowers and leaves! It was really hard to force myself to stop because there were amazing sights everywhere I turned! In fact, I MEANT to take a walk down to our gate and take advantage of the cloudy conditions to take pictures of the yellow Oregon Sunshine flowers that are in bloom. However, I only made it about 25 feet from the front door! Rose buds drizzled with droplets, rose leaves covered with water pearls...I was DAZZLED! Just before I forced myself back into the house, I turned around and gasped at the traditional irises that are filling our garden with outrageous color. I couldn't resist taking pictures of these blue-purple flowers with their yellow throats, and when I saw this on my computer, it was an easy choice for my pick of the day! Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died aged 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted (although no gun was ever found). His work was then known to only a handful of people and appreciated by fewer still. Wikipedia: Vincent Van Gogh