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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 150 mm — 1/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Cherry-Blossom Season 2010 Just Starting
Kyoto, Japan
The weather has been miserable lately — cold and rainy, with possible snow tomorrow — but the cherry blossoms have started blooming already, a week earlier than normal. You can see the normal season for the trees near my place in the month-long cherry-blossom time-lapse from a few years ago. It stopped drizzling for a bit late this afternoon, so I went out for a picture.
My main intent this afternoon was to try to get something that highlighted that one tree had absolutely no blossoms yet, while the trees next to it were well on their way. (You can see in the timelapse that the leftmost tree lags the others by a few days, though this year the contrast seems much more stark.)
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — 1/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 450 — map & image data — nearby photos
Blooming Backdrop Behind Budding Branch
The shot above is at f/2.8, and is fairly boring, but it's better than the same shot at f/22....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — 1/80 sec, f/22, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Knowing that none of those would be interesting, I tried looking straight up....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/250 sec, f/5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Buds, but Feeling Barren
And playing around with the new point-curve feature of Lightroom 3 Beta 2, I gave the monochrome stark look a try...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
post processing done completely in Lightroom
It's not quite my cup of tea, but it's fun to experiment.
Would be cool, literally and figuratively, if it were to actually snow tomorrow... I can imagine snow-laden cherry blossoms might be pretty.....
Last one is more like an illustration, as such that is lovely but not as a photograph.
I’m not sure I understand your point. Why does that matter one way or the other? —Jeffrey
I agree with you Jeffrey, although that is not my comment.
My comment is: I seem to remember that the Cherry Blossom trees bloom on or about the 10th of April in Wash. DC. Donation of the trees by the Japanese Govt. quite a few years ago. Another indication of people making peace, not war. I always liked the trees and the gesture.
Mel