Dodworth Valley Inn, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, at night.

Tags:   Nikon D300 Night Light

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"Mauve: a moderate purple" - Dahlia not quite drip-dried after a shower.
Nikon D300; 06/06/09; 16:11 Click here to view LARGE

Tags:   Flower Nature pink purple Mauve Dahlia wet shower raindrops white garden

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Nikon Coolpix December 2007. View On Black

Tags:   Autumn Leaves Frost Winter brown ice Nature

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View LARGE on black EYE FOCUS - Focusing on the bee's eye with an aperture of ƒ9 provides sufficient DoF to give detail not only in the rest of the body but also in the individual florets of the Verbena flower nearest to the bee, whilst throwing foreground and especially distant background out of focus. Nikon D300; Aperture Priority, set at ƒ9; 1/800 sec .Location: the garden of retirement home at Oradour Fanais, in the Charente, France. Taken: 24/07/08, 14:10:16

Tags:   ExCaptureMacro SCREAM OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER ABigFave THE 3 B's Golden Aardvark Award Group The Nature Group Lucky or Good. GoldStarAward DEFENDERS AnAwesomeShot ColorPhotoAward TheUnforgettablePictures SOE Macro-Life

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Each spring oak trees produce both male and female flowers. Both kinds (especially the female) are small and therefore go unnoticed by the casual observer. The male (pollen-producing) flowers do occasionally become more conspiculous when a shaft of sunlight strikes these dangling catkins and highlights them against a relaively shadowy background. Then, if you use a zoom lens you can "move" closer and captutre the beauty of these suspended strings of tiny yellow-green beads. Sometimes when a gust of wind wafts through an oak at this time of year you can see clouds of pollen from the male flowers drift through the tree. This photo was taken in the Charente, France on 3 May 2009 (09:52) when the slanting rays of the morning sun spotlighted this twig. The emerging pleated leaves of this oak begin life a flushed pink but quickly fade through yellow-green as they expand before they darken. At this early stage they complement the male flowers and for a brief period they look magnificent together.
This image also contains six individual fertilized female flowers that have begun to develop into embryonic acorns but they are so inconspiculous they are very easily overlooked. They can be found on the section of the twig from the left-hand edge of the image to the central spray of male flowers and are more easily seen if the image is viewed large (link below). On one of them you can still see the sepals of the female flower at the tip of the tiny forming acorn, just as the dried remnants of female flower sepals often cling to tip of fruit like the apples or pears. View LARGE for detail (recommended)
Nikon D300; Nikor zoom lens at 200 mm, ƒ5.6, 1/160 sec.
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Tags:   Spring Oak male flowers of oak emerging leaves pink green trees. flowers Nature

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