I figured I might as well get around to adding some blog entries of my own. I thought I would discuss photographing subjects no matter the situation, or my mood, might dictate. One of our favorite places to visit is the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. I like going to enjoy the peaceful settings. It is also a great place for location shots for engagement sessions, senior portraits, etc. However, we usually go so we (mainly Gina) can photograph a wide variety of flowers. I often find myself less than inspired. It isn't a macho thing, I like flowers. I just don't feel inspired to photograph them. So as we go our separate ways through the gardens I look for interest within or around the flowers. After some time spent taking photos we head back home to load the photos into the computers.

The next step is even a bigger challenge for me than taking the photographs in the first place. And that step is finding one of the images I just loaded "worthy" of spending time processing into a final image. I don't think I am alone in the photographer "community" falling into the role of being my own harshest critic. I have tons of images in my hard drive that I have browsed through and rarely pick any to process. Then after some (okay, way TOO MUCH) time passes, some of the images still hold my attention long enough to finish. I'm still playing with images from our trip to the Black Hills...and that trip was last August.

So back to the Arboretum pictures. The last time we were there I took a few shots. Not many inspired me then and they still don't inspire me. However, I did get some shots of the giant bumblebees around a particular group of flowers. There was one bee that was a little larger than his friends. I found a shot of him where he was nice and clear and in focus.

The original image itself is nothing spectacular:

This is right from the camera (except for the watermark of course).

I thought I'd give it a shot to see what I could do. I did a severe crop and then basic processing. I cropped so much it would probably look not so good printed out at a decent size...but there's enough pixels to at least look good on a computer screen.

I ended up really enjoying my final result. It is currently my phone's wallpaper.

So I did manage to salvage something from a photo outing where I did not think I would keep anything. I have to keep this in mind any time I take out the camera. If I just put forth some effort, I will get results. Even if a person has no interest to stop and smell (or photograph) the roses, look around the roses for something else. It's there is you let yourself look.

- John