Irides, June 22nd

A flowering Tall Bearded Wild Jasmine Iris in the light of the setting sun in a private garden. Captured with a Canon 7D with 70-200/2.8L IS II + 1.4 TC III in manual mode at ISO200, f/9.0, and 1/25th of a second. The camera was mounted on a Gitzo 3540XLS and Induro GHB2 gimbal head with custom long lens support.

A friend invited me to come and create some images of his more than two thousand irides near Lockwood, Montana. The summer snuck up on us, so I was a few days late to catch the bulk of the flowers at their peek; but I was there soon enough to catch the tail end. We planned the shoot for the time just before sunset, allowing these magical colors. Reflectors were used both to reflect light; but also to try and block the wind. We also used a plamp to hold the stem to allow for the needed exposure length without loosing detail to motion blur.

I had a great time, and hope to visit next year right at the peek and create many more images of these beautiful flowers.

Make the jump to go through the online gallery, I ask that you leave comments/criticism or at least give your favorites a thumbs up... THANKS!

If you have questions, ask... I published the camera information with each image and have added full keywords to share just about anything you would want to know about the images.

Happy shooting

p.s. Did you know that the plural of Iris was Irides (not Irises)?

Big Sky Journal - Cover

For those, like me, who always want to see the full image it looks a little something like this.

On the forth of July, 2009 I had found this seasonal stream and had a feeling that it could make a great foreground element for a landscape shot at sunset. The clouds looked promising, so I raced out to se what I could make. On the way I stopped to take this image, which some of you might remember from a few spreads in the 'New Yorker' or from busses/trains/billboards across the country. When the shot I took on my way to my planned scene started bringing in significant sums of money/attention I started to question how I could have felt that this scene, with the stream, could have been better. Thankfully now that it has graced the cover of this beautiful magazine it is starting to make me feel a little be better.

I think that 07/04/09 might just have been the best forth of July of my life (2 significant images). I know for a fact that the sunset that night was the best firework show I have even seen. If memory serves me correctly, way back to my school days, I think that I had my first kiss on a forth of July, I don't know if that is really any real competition :)