Red Patio Winter
Saturday was a horribly gray day, miserably dark, typical for November on the northwest coast, but without the rain. I decided that there had to be some cheerful colours hiding in the garden, and went out with the macro lens to see what I could see. I look differently when I am thinking of magnifying something, and the brighter seasonal colours seem to come in small patches at about this time, so the macro is the perfect tool for this task.
Here are some of the reds that showed up in the Japanese maples – one on the patio, the other at the front of the house. We think this variety is called “coral bark”, but that is only hearsay; if one of my gardening readers knows more, please chime in.
Later this week I will include some other colours and plants. I look at this as a continuation of earlier patio posts, such as Patio Fall and Succulent Frost.
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Bottom photo removed to make room in WP storage area – read comments accordingly.
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Close up shots all taken with SMC Takumar 100mm f4.0 macro screw mount (m42) lens on a Canon EOS 5D MkII. The light was rotten and the tripod was across town, so was shooting at ISO 2000, usually at f4 and f5.6 with shutter speeds in the 1/125th to 1/250th range though some slower, some faster. Most of the pictures are pretty heavily cropped. I am assuming the soft focus comes from the ISO setting, hand holding at quite slow speeds for the length/type of the lens and the very flat light.
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burnt embers 
What is it they say – Color is where you find it. Nice shots. Especially the first, it’s beautiful in its simplicity.
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thank you Ken. Colour is everywhere in nature. The first is my favourite of these as well. I had a different crop that I nearly put up that has even less of the red twig in it – toss up between the two. But this one has the blurry red stripe across the bottom that I think adds something important.
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these are really beautiful!
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Thank you Karen.
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Gorgeous colours. The middle one is my favourite – I really like the composition.
The top one made me giggle like a schoolgirl.
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Hey Synco – my photos have never had that kind of schoolgirl response before. I think I am delighted 🙂 And thank you for the compliments.
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Be delighted.
I’m looking at this on my camera phone and somehow missed the very top shot the first time. My original comment referred to the block of three.
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Well, that explains an awful lot. I am delighted 🙂
And pleased too that you like the third one (I had wondered which middle one you meant) – I played with that crop a fair bit to get something that seemed right.
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Wonderful color. 🙂
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Hello Nandini – thank you, even in small amounts the colour changes the surroundings.
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