a splash of color

A splash of color caught my eye this morning, so I turned the bike around for a closer look. Unfortunately the color was too far away from the road side, but just at that moment, the maid of this house started work on the porch. I got her attention and she called the lady of the house, who was very happy that I wanted to photograph her flowers.

I am not really a flower person, so I have no idea what the name of the plant is. I did ask the nice lady with my extremely crude Bahasa, ?nama ini? (pointing). She did tell me, but like all Indonesian words, it went in one ear, rattled around for a while, but fell out of the other ear on the way home. I am going to start carrying a notebook with me in future, as I think it is more professional to state the genus of the plant or the name of the child etc, in the write-up.

So armed with a cup of coffee and my camera, I set about the job in hand. This side of the house was shaded at this time of the day and shutter speeds were right down into camera shake territory. This also meant that the required apertures for the correct exposure meant that depth of field was going to be very limited. As usual, I forgot about the ISO adjustment, I have been a snapper for so long, since digital started. When I was serious about photography in the pre-digital days, ASA choice was everything.

This shot was to be about the bank of color and it quickly became obvious that I would not get a sharp picture of the entire bank. I spotted a branch from a different plant/bush close by, so decided to use the color bank as an out of focus back drop.

I tried the elbows in, breathe out and squeeze slowly, but I could feel that this was not steady enough for the 1/15th second exposure. I spotted a digging tool, propping the wall up, so a grabbed that and after a few strange contortions, was able to get a steady-ish shot. I could hear the lady and maid jabbering behind me, so they were obviously entertained and I am sure that I will be allowed to return in the future, perhaps when the light is better or with my tripod.

Dave