After a hectic trip, I’m back home now and with a long, laundry list of things to do (including hitting some of my favorite spots near my home for wildflower and wildlife photography). I had a wonderful art festival in Springfield, Missouri, and met lots of great nature lovers! Saturday was a really busy day, selling several framed prints and lots of unframed, nature prints. Again, the top seller continues to be the “Devil’s Tower ‘Night Show’ with the Milky Way & Perseids Meteors”, followed closely by several different Bald Eagle images.
On the way home, I stopped for some wildflower photography at one of my favorite Missouri locations … Prairie State Park. As with my last visit there, I was seriously challenged by the weather. Rain and strong winds made photographing wildflowers extremely difficult. My posture was to sit out the heaviest rains in the car, then “hit the prairie” fast and furiously during the brief periods of lesser rain that were between the heavy rains. But even then, the constant winds were another challenge. To help counter their effects, I raised my camera’s ISO higher than I wanted (up to 1250 at times, when conditions warranted), shot in “burst” mode (hoping a few images would be satisfactorily in focus), and trying to use my own body as a “block” against the wind. Very challenging!
Even with these non-ideal conditions, I had a lot of fun. One of the wildflowers now blooming at Prairie State Park is Spiked Lobelia (Lobelia spicata), a member of the Bellflower family. This flower grows on a single stalk, up to 3-feet high. The flowers are spike-like, with a 2-divided upper lip and a 3-divided lower lip. Flowers can range from a pale blue to a dull white. In Missouri, they can be found statewide.
Here are some of my favorite images I captured yesterday:
Coming up, more wildflower images and an update on my “Barn Owl Cam”.
Photographic Equipment Used:
- Canon 5D Mark 3 body
- Canon EF 28mm-135mm, f/3.5-f/5.6 IS lens
- Handheld, with IS “On”
- ISO 500 to ISO 1200
- Aperture f/3.5 to f/8
- Shutter 1/200 sec. to 1/1200 sec.