During the pandemic I’ve spent a fair amount of time on my photography but haven’t posted many pictures. These are some of my best works during this past year.

• I See You (Dutch Iris) (1 inch)

  http://photo.chjonesconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/1-I-see-you-dutch-iris-20x16-1.jpg

  I cut some medium sized blue Dutch irises from Barbara’s garden and set them on my kitchen table. The main bulbs started drying out from the tip. I originally called this water buffalo because this tip looks like the horns on a (certain type of) water buffalo to me but I decided that was too obscure a reference. Barbara suggested something like my final title. The blurred colors in the background are the other two main bulbs of the flower. The width is about 1 inch. 46 stacked photos.

  

• Say Ahhhhhhh (Oncidinae Orchid) (0.57 inch)

  http://photo.chjonesconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2-say-ahhhhhhh-22x17-FINAL-38X-0p57-inch.jpg

  An interesting aspect of this orchid is that the individual flowers are very pretty but the spikes have so many closely spaced flowers that they look cluttered and it’s hard to focus on a single flower. The yellow at the bottom is part of the lip (or labellum). The main subject of the picture is the column (pistil-stigma combo for orchids). The width is about 0.57 inch. 52 stacked photos.

  

• Tomatillo Seed Cage (1 inch)

  http://photo.chjonesconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/3-tomatillo-seed-cage-22x17-1.jpg

  This is the trellis left behind after the fruit of the tomatillo completely disintegrates leaving only the seeds. The pod is about 1 inch from stem tip to point. Taken with a 70 mm lens with a 12 mm extension tube. The pod is 1 inch tip to tip. 7 stacked photos.

  

• Horror Trope (Hellebore) (0.38 inch)

  http://photo.chjonesconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/4-Horror-Trope-Hellebore-20x16-1.jpg

  I’m not much of a horror fan, but I’ve seen enough that when I saw this I immediately thought of the classic trope of a tentacle monster emerging from something. In fact, I thought about calling this “Stranger Thing”. The original picture I took wasn’t quite what I wanted. So I waited for the next flower on the Hellebore plant to open up to my desired point in its development. The width is about 0.38 inches. 275 stacked photos.

  

• Birch Bark Goldfish I (0.38 inch)

  http://photo.chjonesconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5-birch-bark-Goldfish-I-20x16-1.jpg

  We took a trip to New England to see family, see the fall foliage, and tour the area. Paper Birches are quite common there (they fill the niche that Aspens do in the west). The name derives from how the bark peels and looks like paper. The combination of positive and negative space that creates the “goldfish” is fascinating. The red “head” is a partially hidden seed and the “tail” is from a rip in the “paper”. The width is about 0.38 inches. 212 stacked photos.

  

• Seed Bird (paper birch bark) (0.25 inch)

  http://photo.chjonesconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/6-Seed-Bird-paper-birch-bark-20x16-1.jpg

  We took a trip to New England to see family, see the fall foliage, and tour the area. Paper Birches are quite common there (they fill the niche that Aspens do in the west). The name derives from how the bark peels and looks like paper. I don’t know what kind of seed it is, but this one looks birdlike to me and the color and texture contrasts are cool. The width is about 1/4 inch. 25 stacked photos.

  

• Milkweed Seed Collage (0.5 inch)

  http://photo.chjonesconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/7-milkweed-seed-collage-20x16-FINAL-40X-0p5-inch.jpg

  Barbara and I did a 3 week car trip around New England and New York. She has relatives in Vermont and a little outside of where they live there were a bunch of milkweeds in seed. This is a close in picture of some seeds still in the pod. You can see part of the center of the pod itself along the diagonal. I really like the surreal feel to this and how it is not easily recognizable as milkweed. The shapes seem to beg to form something recognizable, but that something doesn’t resolve when you look at the details. The width is about 0.5 inch. 300 stacked photos.

  

• Mustache ala Borage (0.15 inch)

  http://photo.chjonesconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/8-mustache-ala-borage-16x20-1.jpg

  Barbara and I won the lottery for a plot in the community garden. This pretty blue flower is a prolific volunteer. A web search indicates it is a common flower to plant in gardens and that it can be used as an herb. There are five of these “mustaches” at the base of the flower next to the blue petals. This is close to the limit of my lenses and magnification and is one of the first uses of adding extension tubes to the macro zoom lens at 5X to achieve a 6.7X magnification. It will not enlarge as much as some other pictures will. The width is about 0.15 inches. 38 stacked photos.

  

• Stem and Beard (Bearded Iris) (3 inches)

  http://photo.chjonesconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/9-stem-and-beard-bearded-iris-9-16z20jpg.jpg

  Barbara got a bunch of free iris bulbs from the Advent Gardeners group. They included a variety of colors of some huge bearded irises. She was away most of the time they bloomed the first year and I picked them for my kitchen table. As much as I like this shot, the color is quite lighter than the actual flower which is a really dark and rich purple. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how to capture that color. The height is about 3 inches. Single picture, not stacked.

  

• Iris Faceoff (0.9 inch)

  http://photo.chjonesconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/10-iris-faceoff-22x17-FINAL-24X-0p9-inch.jpg

  I had this iris on my kitchen table for several days. I was hesitant to take pictures because the only picture I could see was a rather common approach to looking at the beard or overall flower. But the colors and shape kept calling to me so I dove in to find this really nice angle. The ultimate picture has an awesome array of textures. A minor part of the effect is that the flower was just slightly wilted so that the lip (lower center) has the 90 degree angle. The title comes from a surreal interpretation of the beard as an alien creature confronting the rearing stamen. The width is about 0.9 inches. 103 stacked photos.