Filoli Gardens

[mythlady]

Hi everyone -- Filoli is a historic mansion and gardens near me -- the mansion was used as the one in the old show, Dynasty, if anyone remembers that. Once a month they have "Artist Access Days," when painters and photographers are allowed in at 3:30, when it closes to the public, and can stay until 6:30. You pay for the privilege, of course, but it's glorious -- it's a huge place, and when I went on Thursday with a couple of folks from my photography club, there were maybe 20 people in the whole place. I walked around for hours, taking pictures, and even sat down to paint a little in my watercolor journal (at which I really am awful). It was a great time -- the only problem was the wind, which was rather too brisk for photography, but we managed somehow. I have a whole set on flickr here, but thought I'd share a couple of excerpts with you all. I'm not happy with a couple in the set and am still working on them.

#1


#2


#3


#4


Comments welcome --

[mythlady]

Note -- I'm aware the pics are too large -- sorry!! I'm replacing them. Egad, I'm so absent-minded sometimes --

Later: There. Fixed. Crisis averted.

[jiro]

I already see a lot of good shot opportunities just by looking at image #1, Elise. I wish I could go there some time and have a blast, too. #4 is a definite winner for me here. You handled the bright sunlight (or was it during sunset?) on this one. Thank you very much for sharing!

[mythlady]

Thanks, Jiro -- I did darken/vignette the last one. It was very bright sunshine, and will be throughout all the summer months. Last time I went, it was April, which is better, I think, or maybe October, which I think is the last one. Then the light would be fading toward the end of the time. There are also a lot of places that are in shadow, but the wind was so bad that it was hard to capture those on that particular day.

Here's one of those that I managed to get:

[Katy Noelle]

I'm glad that it didn't rain, after all. I've been looking forward to these, Elise!

They're all lovely, of course. I especially like the light in #2 and that it's not the typical shot. It makes me want to be there. I like #4, also, but what's going on with the shadows? Is there a vignette? I'm off to look at the rest of your photos.

It's good to have you posting, here, again! Kind of miss you - even though we Blog visit. It's hard to blog and do CiC, at the same time, isn't it? I can't imagine having photography clubs and flickr participation and classes, etc., too.

edit: Oh, I see that you vignetted the last one. What's it like without? I love long shadows. Were they that bad? They didn't add to the sense of time of day (which would be lovely considering the sundial)?

[mythlady]

Here's the original -- I darkened the sides to highlight the sundial. I'm bummed that the framing is askew.



I'm very happy with the one of the foxgloves -- for once, I took my wide angle lens, a very good one that I have almost never used. It was perfect for that shot.

[Katy Noelle]

Here's the original -- I darkened the sides to highlight the sundial. I'm bummed that the framing is askew.



I'm very happy with the one of the foxgloves -- for once, I took my wide angle lens, a very good one that I have almost never used. It was perfect for that shot.

Elise, your first edit that drew attention to the sundial was effective. I'm very empathetic, here, about you not having quite framed the shot symmetrically. In this original shot, though, the blue of the flowers adds so much! Is there anyway to help the shot by cropping, instead - isn't there a perspective distortion tool in PS? er, you know about those options but you didn't want to do that? Too bad that you couldn't be there when the shadows were longer - and the light a little softer - "days gone by"-like. Anyway, perhaps you framed it like that because you were focusing on getting the angle on the sundial just right so that you could see the gnomon??? (Is that the right word?)

It's interesting, I think that I've been out with my camera for too long, this evening. I'm starting to think about different angles and how I would take try to capture this. I'm wanting to walk round the silly thing and look at it from all angles. (Something tells me that I'm going to be dreaming about dof, tonight. Meh!)