Photography.

When you look at a photo sometimes what you see is not always what really was, with photo editing programs you can do wonderful things.

Click on photo to enlarge.

The photo above is actually the blending of two separate photos, I also enhanced the colours  a bit. Below are the two photos I used to create the one above.

This is the flower on the left in the first photo, here the change in colour is very noticeable.

This is the flower on the right.

This photo is as it was taken. 

Cosmos flowers.

The cosmos season only lasts a few weeks here, but while it does there are thousands of photo opportunities.

Click to enlarge.

I can almost imagine fairies dancing around this flower.

They appear suddenly in the 2nd week of March and by the 3rd week of April the show is over.

You hardly ever find these flowers out in the open fields but always next to farm and country dirt roads.

Profusion or prolific doesn't even begin to describe the the billions of these flowers that line South Africa's highways and byways in autum!

Photographer photographed.

The cosmos flowers have been absolutely stunning this year, and I have been out with my camera every afternoon, now that it's the autumn school holidays, at sunrise as well.

On Saturday morning I was out again, camera on the tripod taking photos of the flowers and the stunning sunrise. Time-laps sunrise photos in another post.

Click to enlarge.

Unbeknownst to me the Italian leprechaun, aka Enrico Bucceri, was photographing me. We had heavy rain the night before, thus the water drop on the flower. As an aside, on Saturday night a neighbouring farm measured 100 cm, not kidding, that's a meter of rain, more than 36 inches in 12 hours.

What I was photographing while being photographed.

Saturday afternoon I was out again with my camera.

Me totally unaware as the Italian leprechaun took another photo of me. Note the open mouth, a sure sign of me in deep concentration. 

How low can you go. I'm actually amazed at myself, it's the getting up again that's the problem. My three photographic assistants behind me, Sissy right behind me, Tombi to the right, and lady sitting demurely just to the left, Bruno was off doing the "man" thing, exploring. They have learnt to stay behind me while I'm taking a photo.

What I was concentrating so hard on. Trying to be "arty" but it didn't quite work. This farm track had been a river the night before.

Cosmos and crab spiders.

Summer is on the downhill slope here in the Southern Hemisphere, and autumn is fast approaching. One of the signs of autumn here is the cosmos flowers which start to bloom. Yesterday afternoon late, I went out to photograph some of them. I noticed that many of the blooms have a resident crab spider, Thomisus spectabilis. These spiders ambush bees and other insects which come to collect nectar.

Click to enlarge.

The spider on this flower had just dipped the carcass of a bee over the edge of the flower. All evidence of murder most foul disposed of.

Here the spider has taken on the colour of the pollen in the center of the flower. On some of the white flowers the spiders were such an exact match that they were virtually invisible.

Close up of the spider above, enlarge the photo to see the detail.

A general photo of some of the flowers.

Perfect beauty.

Standing tall.

Silouhete of grass stems against  the sunset.