View On Black | View Large On Black

Tags:   Butterfly Tree Nymph Paper Kite Idea Leuconoe San Diego Wild Animal Park Cosmos? Sharon says they are. And I won't argue. NaturesFinest BEJ The Perfect Photographer BlueRibbonWinner ImpressedBeauty Nature Through The Lens SOE Elite Photography

© All Rights Reserved

It's hard to believe that this innocent-looking little flower produces such obnoxious stickers. The curly-que seed pods twist their way into some long-haired dogs' coats (and your socks/shoe laces, if they're exposed, which is why we wear snow gators during the weed season) and take hours to remove. Fortunately, they don't seem to do that to Vizslas or Bloodhounds.

We used to make "scissors" out of the green seed pods when we were in grammar school. I didn't know they were called Heron's/Crane's/Stork's bill until I looked them up on the Internet, but it's very easy to see why they use those names, when you look at the green seed pods.

View On Black | View Large On Black

Tags:   Filaree Heron's bill Crane's bill Common Stork's-bill Redstem filaree Erodium cicutarium AnAwesomeShot

© All Rights Reserved

Explore #188, 4/25/09.

View On Black

Tags:   Poppy www.theflowerfields.com Carlsbad California platinumphoto Shield Of Excellence GoldStarAward SOE AnAwesomeShot

© All Rights Reserved

Explore #166, 4/28/09.

Believe it or not, eight-lane Interstate 5 runs edge to edge through this image. The only evidence of it is the single semi-trailer and, possibly, that blue thingy, whatever that is. The truck with the red cab is on the other side of the freeway. Though not true in the past, it's almost impossible to see the flowers from the freeway, these days, which I suppose is a good thing, because they actually used to cause traffic problems and decrease safety, when everybody would look at them while driving.

It would have been nice to be able to zoom all the way out in order to show more of the flowers, but there were distractions on both sides. Even without zooming out, there was clearly visible barrel distortion, which, I guess, is common with full-frame cameras. It was easy to fix in Photoshop, though, as was straightening the horizon, which is even easier to do in Lightroom.

View On Black

Tags:   Pacific Ocean Tecolote Ranunculus www.theflowerfields.com Carlsbad California Shield Of Excellence ABigFave COTH BlueRibbonWinner SOE

© All Rights Reserved

Tags:   Purple Picotee Ranunculus Tecolote www.theflowerfields.com Carlsbad California

© All Rights Reserved