Yesterday, I made a short trip to the woodland where I conduct my spring woodland wildflower photography workshops. Things are really going to town! I found several wildflowers up and getting ready to bloom, as well as other wildflower species that have emerged through the leaf litter and will follow the “early risers” in the typical blooming sequence on the woodland.
Today’s post features the Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica), sometimes referred to as Virginia cowslip. Although I didn’t find any “bells” on any of the hundreds of plants there, most all had the small, blue buds present. Here are some of my favorites:
Note that pollinators are beginning to make their way to the woodland wildflowers:
In the last image, you can see two bells being formed by the opening buds. I expect that by next week, the woods will be filled with bells! If you are on my “photo workshop participants” list, I’ll be setting up some “shorty” workshops very soon … likely as early as next week (I’ll be going to the woodlands again at the end of this week to check on the progress).
In tomorrow’s post, I’ll feature another woodland wildflower that I photographed yesterday … the False Rue Anemone, which is blooming really well right now, with lots of buds still being formed!
Photographic Equipment Used:
- Canon 5D Mark 3 body
- Canon EF 180mm, f/3.5 macro lens
- Bogen 3221 tripod and ballhead
- ISO 800 (higher than what I wanted to use, but the wind was pretty nasty at times)
- Aperture f/3.5 to f/8 (varied with the distance I was from the plant, and what I wanted in sharp focus)
- Shutter 1/80 sec. to 1/2500 sec.