Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: zinnia

There are few things as enjoyable as visiting a friend's lovely garden and spending hours taking pictures. I got to do that a few years ago at my friend Elaine's home in Ashland. This image is interesting to me because it has little in focus but I still think it's nice anyway. Maybe it's the combination of colors and bokeh that appeals to me. The softness is kind of dreamy to me. What do you think? Do you like it or would you have preferred this picture to be more crisp?

This is another flower I grew in my garden, and there were blossoms in yellow and pink as well! I had some fun with the background, which was originally very busy, so I replaced it with a texture.

4 more pictures in notes above! (the picture of coins has two other versions to see if visit) I love it when Thursday rolls around because I get to participate in the Bokeh Thursday Challenge! :D This week's theme is "Coins", which had me bouncing up and down because I've been wanting to take some pictures of our leftover foreign coins for a while! We keep our odd coins in a box in the bedroom and of course I took my parrot, Pumpkin, out of her cage to help supervise! I let her romp around on the bed while I looked over the loot, and she was having such a good time that I decided to bring the camera and flash upstairs and let her play on the bed while I took pictures. We went downstairs together, she on a finger, laughing as we walked down the stairs, and then she made silly wine-cork noises at the strange stuff I was carrying back upstairs with me! While I took pictures, she proceeded to walk around on our comforter, making "chicken tracks" all over the soft plush blanket. This is so funny to see, but I couldn't get any pictures that showed how cute the footprints look, boo! Even though I was taking pictures of coins, I kept an eye on Pumpkin at all times while she played. She didn't want to have anything to do with the camera equipment, but instead busied herself by hanging off the side of the bed and chortling happily at me. She also crawled through a tunnel I made for her under the comforter and I snickered as I heard her making funny croaking sounds as she investigated her private clubhouse. I peeked over the edge of the bed at one point and found her making "creaking" sounds as she stared intently at a place where two pieces of wood came together, forming a crack. She loves cracks. They make her laugh! :D I finally finished taking pictures and gathered up my darling girl, covering her with kisses and telling her how much I love her. And as I plopped a treat into her food cup and swung her in a wide arc into her cage, she squealed happily, "WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!" That's my girl. Best little friend in the whole, wide world!!!! Texture used in this image: Netherworld TOTD # 128 by Jerry Jones (SkeletalMess on Flickr) Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The story of how Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker. Her birthday on June 27 is commemorated as Helen Keller Day in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and was authorized at the federal level by presidential proclamation by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, her 100th birthday. Wikipedia: Helen Keller Explored on August 22, 2013. Highest placement, page 2 (#40).

3 more pictures in notes above! :) Such radiant blossoms. Cosmos are amazingly beautiful flowers, and they are also quite easy to grow. In fact, I've got 7 seeds that will hopefully grow into plants fast enough to flower by the time it gets too cold around here! By the way, I've added some other Cosmos pictures in notes above that I took last year! ENJOY! From Wiki: Cosmos is a genus, with the same common name of Cosmos, of about 20–26 species of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. They are native to scrub and meadowland in Mexico where most of the species occur, Florida and the southern United States, Arizona, Central America, and to South America in the north to Paraguay in the south. Cosmos are herbaceous perennial plants growing 0.3–2 m (10 in–6 ft 7 in) tall. Flower color is very variable between the different species. The genus includes several ornamental plants popular in gardens; numerous hybrids and cultivars have been selected and named.

1 more picture in a note above! :) One of the things I adore about many species of flowers is the fact that they have "flowers within flowers". In the center of the main flower, you will find a number of tiny flowers! I thought it would be fun to share a close-up of one of my Zinnia blossoms so that you can see a pair of these beautiful little stars!

Look at all that crazy bokeh! It was hard to choose between my main picture and this one for Pick of the Day, but I think the main one is 1) a little bit nicer and 2) a different angle from the last Zinnia that got Pick of the Day! :)

Here is a view with a very shallow focus to highlight the pretty petals before falling away into bokeh. Such pretty flowers.

I had this picture in "private" mode because I took another one similar to it, but since the day I posted the pictures is long past, I thought it would be wonderful to share this favorite for my contribution to The Alphabet Site with the letter Z! :D

3 more pictures in notes above! :) Yesterday was one of those days when I got two pictures of a zinnia that I REALLY wanted to use as my Picture of the Day. In the end, I let my husband decide. But I still wanted to show that other picture...so... this morning I took the picture over again! It's not exactly the same (f/11 vs f/14, slight angle variation, flower further along in bloom cycle) but it's very close! I have included yesterday's version in my notes for you to compare--you'll also notice that it's a bit more in the yellow range.) Funny enough, it took quite a few attempts and two visits before I got one that was close enough for me to be satisfied! It was an interesting exercise to try to repeat my picture from yesterday. I figured it would seem simple and prove difficult...and I was right. But it was fun to keep trying until I was happy with the result! Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist. Andy Warhol Explored on August 4, 2013. Highest placement, page 2 (#41).

2 more pictures in notes above! :) A few days ago, I brought home a bunch of flower plants for my garden to have a few more colorful subjects to photograph, but also, because I love flowers! I was planning to put them in my little garden, but the morning I was going to plant them, I discovered that some deer came through during the night and ate my new echinacea and strawberry plant. We bought a special sprayer that detects motion to scare the animals away, but sadly, it's not working very well. On top of that, there isn't anything for the deer to eat around here now and they are desperate enough that water spraying at them isn't deterring them anymore. After I got over being infuriated and upset (and yet, I truly can't blame them), I found some planters I'd used years ago, filled them with dirt and planted my new flowers, placing both oblog planters on our front porch where the deer can't get at them. Well ok, they COULD get to them but they'd have to walk ONTO the porch. Steve thinks they might. I really doubt it. Too confining. Let's hope they don't! This is a beautiful Zinnia! I got a six-pack of them in assorted colors, and this one is so beautiful in hot pink! I thought it would be fun to focus on a few of the petals to see what the effect would look like, and when I showed my husband, he told me that it MUST be my pick of the day! :D Who am I to argue? :) Jules Henri Poincaré (29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as The Last Universalist, since he excelled in all fields of the discipline as it existed during his lifetime. Henri Poincaré Explored on August 3, 2013. Highest placement: page 1 (#12).

This image was taken at the Josephine County Fair on August 20, 2011.

This image was taken at the Josephine County Fair on August 20, 2011.