Last year, I have shown you three wild tulip compositions, which were all taken of the only specimen that I had ever seen. During this years's spring holiday in Southern France, we have repeatedly discovered populations of Tulipa sylvestris and I have taken a few more photographs - some of which I would like to share here. This "Flora" blog post is therefore just an addition to the first wild tulip blog post from last year.

Wild tulip (Tulipa sylvestris ssp. australis)

Wild tulip (Tulipa sylvestris ssp. australis)

The three sepals and petals of Tulipa sylvestris ssp. australis.

The April 2015 print, again a photograph from New Zealand, is much belated, but better late than never. This photograph is a good example to illustrate the value of printing. Not only did I struggle to get the highlights, shadows and colors right (to my linking), but I also discovered an annoying chromatic aberration along the mountain ridge. To my shame, I have not ben aware of this problem before; probably because I look more consciously at a print than at a photograph on the screen and because I am not a pixel peeper.
Before the final print, I prepare small test prints to get an overall impression and to look for major shortcomings and defects. After several rounds of adjustments I prepare a print in the final size (roughly 19 cm high, which fits on an A4 paper) and sometimes I have to return correcting and adjusting; such as in this case. Unfortunately, in this particular case the printing has actually lowered my appreciation of a photograph (and of the particular camera-lens combination).
In many ways - artistic ones - I do not rate this photograph very highly. It is "just" a nice landscape documentary. However, for us it is a souvenir, from our amazing hike in Tongariro National Park, that brings back precious memories, which is the main purpose of many photographs.

I haven't been writing for this blog for a few weeks - we have been on holiday and I am, photographically, in a rather unproductive phase. Not really a kind of photographers block, but a lack of motivation and/or dedication.
This carcolor composition is, hopefully, the restart for more regular posting. It features a high-rise office building in Zurich, but it is really the particularly bent and shaped engine hood of the car that was photographed here, which is solely responsible for all the interesting effects (unjustly, the surface itself is almost invisible). The undulated surface triplicated the reflections - there is only one building - and two dents created strange distortion effects in the foremost reflection.

If you are interested, many more carcolor reflections and distortions are found here.