An earthworm’s view. Is that sunlight or room light casting shadows seen through the petals? They look beyond translucent, almost transparent. But, if I may offer a very minor criticism, the Photoshop black background seems unreal.
Rakk, normally you’d be spot on to suspect Mikey of such dissembling, but he places flowers in sunlight for two reasons — one, the lovely translucency to which you refer (takes a lot of light to make it through a tulip petal like that); and two, the innate high contrast, which renders the background black without needing to resort to such trickery (which is also usually betrayed by curved edge pixelation, none of which can be detected here by me). Besides, I lifted the image and ran its levels to the max in Photoshop, which reveals some background detail in what here looks like pure black.
But knowing Mikey, the real tulips are probably pastel, and his true love — saturation — has been used to make them “primary” … ; >)
What’s my name? Mr. Open Book? Between the two of you I feel like I’ve left the house and forgotten to dress myself.
That background is black cardboard because I didn’t want my scratched kitchen cabinets to distract from the extraordinary colors I see everyday near sunset. Or saw, now that the petals have dropped and the tops of the stems more closely resemble Sinead O’Connor’s head. And believe me, no saturation fiddling has yet to reproduce reality, which is why I kept posting these tulips. Vain attempts to capture the sunshine on those flowers.
The secret is out—Michael uses black cardboard. Wish I had thought of that in Nobeyama when I was shooting flowers. So far this week we’ve had nary a sunset down here in gloomy Maryland. I’ve had only brief glimpses of the sun when I go out in the early morning to try and catch a daffodil in the process of blooming. (They’re getting close.)
No saturation fiddling? Scout’s honor? Impressive colors!
Except, Mr. Open Book, you forgot to put on your SHOES and your “friends” are claiming you forgot your SHIRT. Or the other way around.
I appreciate the flower pictures. It reminds me to appreciate my hot-pink orchid (which is blooming for the second time in 3 years), my incredibly tall white amaryllis (8th bloom in 4 years), and to check the freebie-for-a-reason tulips I’m hoping to force.
Did anyone appreciate the moon yesterday evening between 5:45 and 7:30?
That fully visible “black part” — I used to assume that was an optical illusion. I WISH I had checked it out with binoculars Wednesday, but I didn’t actually see the moon once the sky was fully dark. (I had been hunting for the moon at 5:30 but couldn’t find it until the sky got a hair darker at 5:45.) Could you see craters clearly?
Anyway, in case anyone doesn’t know — that’s called earthshine. You know how light it is here when the moon is full or nearly full? If you had been on the moon Wed night, the earth’s apparent phase would have been nearly full (and it so happens that THIS particular month, Monday was when the moon was at the closest point in its orbit so earth would have appeared about 10% bigger than sometimes) AND earth’s diameter is 4 times the moon’s diameter anyway, thus the sun-reflector in the moon’s sky on Wed night had about 16x the reflecting capability of the sun-reflector in our sky on a typical almost-full-moon night. No shit the dark part was fully visible! End of science lesson. Sorry about that.
Great explanation, Jennifer. I watched that fingernail crescent myself yesterday as the Moon hung over Washington DC.
Science Lesson II
What is not generally known about the dark part of the moon, is that it provides a way of determining the reflectivity of the entire earth. The Caltech Astronomy team has been measuring the moon’s darkened face for the last decade. Their measurements say that earth’s reflectivity has been increasing steadily, probably due to increasing cloud cover. And in spite of that increased reflectivity, earth is still warming up!
Thanks, rakkity. I’d forgotten that others were much better equipped for that science lesson than I. So, did ANYone actually benefit from the lesson?
Is that increased reflectivity going to turn around dramatically when enough ice melts? I mean, all that white changing to darker colors? Or do we really not know — so many other unknowns in this process of global warming?
A very lyrically Alice-in-Wonderland perspective!
I never tire of the insights of macro …
Comment by adam — March 2, 2006 @ 8:05 am
An earthworm’s view. Is that sunlight or room light casting shadows seen through the petals? They look beyond translucent, almost transparent. But, if I may offer a very minor criticism, the Photoshop black background seems unreal.
Comment by rakkity — March 2, 2006 @ 9:51 am
Rakk, normally you’d be spot on to suspect Mikey of such dissembling, but he places flowers in sunlight for two reasons — one, the lovely translucency to which you refer (takes a lot of light to make it through a tulip petal like that); and two, the innate high contrast, which renders the background black without needing to resort to such trickery (which is also usually betrayed by curved edge pixelation, none of which can be detected here by me). Besides, I lifted the image and ran its levels to the max in Photoshop, which reveals some background detail in what here looks like pure black.
But knowing Mikey, the real tulips are probably pastel, and his true love — saturation — has been used to make them “primary” … ; >)
Comment by adam — March 2, 2006 @ 10:39 am
What’s my name? Mr. Open Book? Between the two of you I feel like I’ve left the house and forgotten to dress myself.
That background is black cardboard because I didn’t want my scratched kitchen cabinets to distract from the extraordinary colors I see everyday near sunset. Or saw, now that the petals have dropped and the tops of the stems more closely resemble Sinead O’Connor’s head. And believe me, no saturation fiddling has yet to reproduce reality, which is why I kept posting these tulips. Vain attempts to capture the sunshine on those flowers.
Comment by michael — March 2, 2006 @ 12:56 pm
The secret is out—Michael uses black cardboard. Wish I had thought of that in Nobeyama when I was shooting flowers. So far this week we’ve had nary a sunset down here in gloomy Maryland. I’ve had only brief glimpses of the sun when I go out in the early morning to try and catch a daffodil in the process of blooming. (They’re getting close.)
No saturation fiddling? Scout’s honor? Impressive colors!
Comment by rakkity — March 2, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
Except, Mr. Open Book, you forgot to put on your SHOES and your “friends” are claiming you forgot your SHIRT. Or the other way around.
I appreciate the flower pictures. It reminds me to appreciate my hot-pink orchid (which is blooming for the second time in 3 years), my incredibly tall white amaryllis (8th bloom in 4 years), and to check the freebie-for-a-reason tulips I’m hoping to force.
Did anyone appreciate the moon yesterday evening between 5:45 and 7:30?
Comment by Jennifer — March 2, 2006 @ 6:15 pm
Do you mean the smile in the sky? Diane and I were driving home from the airport at 7 PM – I took it as a personal omen.
Comment by michael — March 2, 2006 @ 7:24 pm
A bare sliver crescent, yes, but the “black” part was –eerily — fully visible.
Comment by adam — March 2, 2006 @ 9:08 pm
That fully visible “black part” — I used to assume that was an optical illusion. I WISH I had checked it out with binoculars Wednesday, but I didn’t actually see the moon once the sky was fully dark. (I had been hunting for the moon at 5:30 but couldn’t find it until the sky got a hair darker at 5:45.) Could you see craters clearly?
Anyway, in case anyone doesn’t know — that’s called earthshine. You know how light it is here when the moon is full or nearly full? If you had been on the moon Wed night, the earth’s apparent phase would have been nearly full (and it so happens that THIS particular month, Monday was when the moon was at the closest point in its orbit so earth would have appeared about 10% bigger than sometimes) AND earth’s diameter is 4 times the moon’s diameter anyway, thus the sun-reflector in the moon’s sky on Wed night had about 16x the reflecting capability of the sun-reflector in our sky on a typical almost-full-moon night. No shit the dark part was fully visible! End of science lesson. Sorry about that.
Comment by Jennifer — March 3, 2006 @ 9:40 pm
Great explanation, Jennifer. I watched that fingernail crescent myself yesterday as the Moon hung over Washington DC.
Science Lesson II
What is not generally known about the dark part of the moon, is that it provides a way of determining the reflectivity of the entire earth. The Caltech Astronomy team has been measuring the moon’s darkened face for the last decade. Their measurements say that earth’s reflectivity has been increasing steadily, probably due to increasing cloud cover. And in spite of that increased reflectivity, earth is still warming up!
Comment by rakkity — March 4, 2006 @ 2:27 pm
Thanks, rakkity. I’d forgotten that others were much better equipped for that science lesson than I. So, did ANYone actually benefit from the lesson?
Is that increased reflectivity going to turn around dramatically when enough ice melts? I mean, all that white changing to darker colors? Or do we really not know — so many other unknowns in this process of global warming?
Comment by Jennifer — March 4, 2006 @ 9:38 pm
Yes.
Beats me.
Comment by michael — March 5, 2006 @ 9:45 am