Photo Strolling in Oakland Cemetery

The day after I went to Old Car City USA, Becky and Brenda came by my house, and we went to Oakland Cemetery. 

As I've mentioned before, I love strolling through cemeteries. I've been to Oakland Cemetery many times. It's wonderful looking at all the old headstones.

They're such a work of art. I read the epitaphs and imagine what their lives were like. Some of the headstones at Oakland Cemetery are quite old. Many of them are extravagant. I imagine their owners were wealthy or they felt they had to spend a lot on a headstone. 

The day I went with Becky and Brenda it was a little overcast and the air was close.

But the birds were singing. There was a faint feeling of spring in the air. The beautiful yellow Forsythia was in full bloom. I didn't spend a lot of time at the cemetery that day. I had to get back to writing. 

Yellow Forsythia in bloom at Oakland Cemetery

Monday, I met my DIL, Kristen, for breakfast at a wonderful little place on Memorial Drive called Petit Chou. I had avocado toast with arugula and a golden turmeric milk latte. Oh my gosh. I've been craving that latte ever since. I could drink one every day. 

Kristen gave me the recipe this morning, and I'll definitely be trying it at home.

After breakfast, we went across the street and strolled through the cemetery looking for photo opportunities. Kristen loves photography and is learning about it, so we've been getting together for photo walks. 

I love sharing my passion for photography with others. 

I took out my wide-angle for my Nikon D610. It's a Tamron 15-30mm. I use it mostly for real estate photography. 

It's a beast of a lens - big and heavy. But it's also fun to play with. 

The above photo of the roses was taken with the wide-angle lens on 15mm.

Instead of standing back and getting all the details of the scene that the wide angle allows, I got as close to the flowers as I could while still maintaining focus.

I love the dreamy, blurry, sort of rounded feeling around the edges of the photo. 

Photography and dreams have a lot in common. I see photos in my mind in a similar way I see dreams. They're sort of choppy, swirly, and not quite real.

I see something in real life that captures my imagination and inspires me to take a photo. But I'm also seeing in my mind's eye how I picture the finished photo. The two scenes are always different. What I see through the lens doesn't match what I imagine the scene to be when it's finished.

I try to get my finished photo as close to what I imagined as possible.

Does that make any sense?

I took the above photo on 1/100, f/5.6, ISO 100. I wanted the sky to have a bit of a blown-out look for that dream-world feeling. If I'd wanted to capture a more detailed sky, I would have had to go with a faster shutter speed, say 1/500th. Then I would have had to bring up some of the shadows in post-production for details in the trees and bushes. 

The other way to deal with the sky is with an ND filter. It darkens the scene so you can use a longer shutter speed during the day. 

We had such a rainy winter. I'm not crazy about shooting in the rain. I'm so excited for spring. Now that the sun is out, I'll be out too. Time for lots of photo walks!

I hope you're enjoying spring too. 

See you between the raindrops!

xoxo,
Susan