The Hostas are in Bloom

I have mixed emotions every year when the hostas start to bloom. Part of me is a little sad because it is one of the many signals that nature gives us indicating that summer is nearing an end. Part of me is happy because some of the best hummingbird watching for the year takes place as these flowers become one of their primary food sources in my back yard. My previous post has an image of one of these beautiful birds taken in the evening against a dark sky. These images were taken against a clear blue sky giving them a much different feel.

An interesting aspect of the first image is that the bird is grasping the stamen of the flower and using it as a perch. The fact that this causes no damage to the flower shows how light weight these hummingbirds are.

When taking the second image I used a much slower shutter speed (1/250th of a second) with a very short flash duration (manual mode using 1/128 power)  and got a combination of motion blur and a sharp focus on the wings and feet. This is one of my favorite tricks I use when photographing fast moving objects.

I was just about ready to put my camera away when I captured the final picture.

Hope you enjoy the images. – John