Life Through My Lens: Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

Daisy Shadow

Camera Swipe

I spent a good part of the morning at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens near Boothbay.  They are strictly an outdoor garden, with no conservatory, but there are many paths and types of gardens, with lots of great walking opportunities.  There is even a kitchen garden sponsored by Burpee Seeds, where vegetables and edible flowers are grown.

Multiple Exposures

Bug!

Dragon Fly

I recently bought a new little macro lens, so I decided to take only it into the gardens.  It was quite windy, making it difficult to focus on bees or centers of flowers, so I opted to try some camera swipes.  To do that, you can shoot in aperture priority, but close the aperture down to F22, which will slow down the shutter speed.  Then stand in front of a cluster of bright colors, focus, and as you press the shutter, swipe hard to the side, or up or down.  The faster the better.  The resulting blur should give you soft, dreamy lines of color that look like watered silk.

The gardens were beautiful.  Everything is so lush and green here.  Along the roadsides are riots of day lilies and white daisies.  There are even a few dogwoods and some mountain laurel still in bloom.  My favorite Maine flower are the wild pink salt spray roses that grow on the coast.  They have a heavenly fragrance and make beautiful rose hips when the blooms are spent.  I'm sure I'll find some of those this week.

I'm all checked in at the dorm here at Maine Media Workshops.  I'll meet the instructor and my classmates tonight and tomorrow the fun continues!

Experiment with camera swipes.  You can get some very interesting results!

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Email:  cam.miller@comcast.net