Flowers – Page 5 – Ritva Sillanmäki Photography

Monochrome Madness – flowers

Posted for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness flowers are beautiful, captivating in both their natural, colorful state and the elegant monochrome interpretations. As I have immersed myself in the process of searching for photos, I found myself drawn deeper into the intricate details and unique characteristics of various flowers. From vibrant roses to delicate lilies, each bloom tells a story of resilience and beauty. It’s truly fascinating how the monochrome concept brings forth a fresh perspective on these natural wonders, allowing us to appreciate their forms and textures in a new light. So, in keeping with this theme, I am continuing exploring and capturing the timeless allure of flowers through monochrome photography.

Vibrant Summer Flowers Eyes

Flowers, Photography

Hope you all a have a bright and joyful day.

Vibrant Summer Flowers, A Delight for the Eyes. The black-eyed Susan, captured for Cee’s Flower of the Day, exude a sense of joy and vibrancy. As we immerse ourselves in the warmth of the summer season, the array of colors and textures found in these blooms invites us to take a moment to appreciate the wonders of flowers.

Last on the Card – July 2024

Captures from Finland, Flowers, Photography

The last photo on the card of my mobile phone was taken around 10PM in Helsinki, right at the quiet marketplace as we were casually strolling home from listening to a live performance by one of my favorite artists. The night air was filled with a sense of excitement and contentment, as the vibrant melodies still played in my head. The colorful sky making it a perfect end to a great evening.

I took this with my Olympus camera with a 14-150mm lens as we were driving in the backroads in Mankala in southern Finland. It always amazes me how the trees can grow in so little soil as they do on these rocky hills. The natural beauty of this region is truly captivating, lush green forests, and stunning rocky terrain. As we meandered through the narrow winding roads, I couldn’t help but notice the vibrant shades of green that adorned the landscape. The tranquility of the surroundings is touchable. It’s incredible how such an unassuming location can hold such enchanting allure.

My last photo on my Sony 2.8/50 MACRO lens. As I reviewed the close-up photos of the day’s flowers previously taken with my phone, I couldn’t help but feel very disappointed by the quality. It’s clear that attempting to edit and post-process images on the small screen of a phone can often fall short of expectations. I think I am going to delete the post, it is so bad. Eager to elevate the quality of my floral photography, I decided to switch back to my trusty camera. Although the flowers were not as fresh as before, the images I captured with the camera were undeniably better in every way. The colors were more vibrant, the details were clearer, and the overall composition was more to my liking.

This was the last one, but not the best one, but as requested, the last 🙂

this is for The Last Photo and #LastOnTheCard

Flower of the day

Flowers, Photography

Posted for Cee’s Flower of the Day

Beauty of Bird Cherry Flowers

Flowers, Photography

The back of my mobile phone was the background for these colorful images, I obviously was not busy as I took time to try different things with these flowers

Bird cherry flowers showily in early summer. The heavy-scented flowers attract insects, especially flies and bees. Black fruits of the bird cherry are bitter-sweet. They can be used for making tasty liqueur, or for dyeing wool as they yield a pale lilac shade. Also called European bird cherry, Hackberry

click to enlarge

Meadow Vetchling: Glowing Yellow Flowers

Flowers, Photography

Meadow vetchling’s Finnish names( niittynätkelmä) often involve animals, and in the past it has been dedicated to mice, rats, dogs and hares, not to mention birds and grasshoppers. Other old names emphasise what is perhaps its most apparent quality: its glowing yellow flowers.

Despite its many names, meadow vetchling has never been an important nutritional or medicinal plant, although it has probably been a useful fodder plant. Its many names probably mean that it has been common and visible.

Delicate Charm of Goldilocks

Flowers, Photography

Goldilocks is a common name for a whole group of buttercups. They often begin to flower already at the end of April and their flowering time peaks at the turn of May and June. The plant’s inflorescence is clearly more modest than meadow buttercup, which flowers a couple of weeks later.

Click on the photos to enlarge it

Beauty of Spreading Bellflower

Flowers, Photography

I have taken some summer flower photos, but for some reason I have not posted them. I have been less on the computer, maybe that is one of the reason. This is For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

All photo can be enlarged with a click.

Spreading bellflower grows as a biennial in Finland, Spreading bellflower in Finland is usually easy to differentiate from its relatives by its more reddish and more narrowly based leaves. White-flowered plants can also be found, although they are clearly rarer than the purple ones. In southern and central Europe the species is not so clearly defined because several slightly different forms exist, as happens in Finland with harebell.

Flower of the day – Red roses

Flowers, Nature

For Cee´s Flower of the Day. I was having fun snapping shots of my Red roses.

All photos can be enlarged with a click 🙂

Lilies of the valley

Flowers, Nature, Photography

Lilies of the valley are so beautiful and delicate, and yes also poisonous

Dandelion times 4

Flowers, Nature, Photography

I took these dandelion shots yesterday and edited them on my phone using Lightroom John’s Cellpic Sunday

Busy 🐝 Bee

Captures from Finland, Flowers, Nature, Photography

For Cee´s Flower of the Day.

Square 31.5.24

Flowers, Nature, Photography

We have reached the end of Becky’s Squares photo challenge, I was distracted by starting a full time job in the middle of it and stopped posting even if I had good intentions to follow the month through. Thanks for this challenge Becky.

Lens-Artists Challenge #301 – Floral

Flowers, lens-artists, Photography

Lens-Artists #301 – Floral hosted by Sofia wrote: I sincerely believe it to be difficult to have photo of a flower that is not beautiful. But for this challenge, I’d like us to think of how we either capture them or how we process the image afterwards.

First I would like to say all my photos for this post are from past week. Somehow it feels like this year we skipped spring all together, we got summer temperatures now and all the flowers are in bloom at the same time. Most of them I’ve taken with my mobile, because last week I felt the camera’s to the summer house in the belief that there would be nothing to photograph, I was wrong. Everything seemed to bloom overnight. and to the how I capture them – mostly close-ups.

I have now real angle this week, my mind is all overloaded with new things and NUMBERs – my least favorite thing .

First here is a look at one tulip. I took a these few days apart, from different directions and I did some editing with lightroom app on my mobile.

The apple tree blossoms beautifully just few days ago and now the really warm weather , not at all normal at this time of the year has wilted them.

random flowers-

Last week Ann-Christine challenged us with the Delicate things, her recent travels to Japan gave us wonderful inspiration. I loved all your examples and how varied they were. This is what makes these challenges so interesting, we all think in different ways and that makes us grow as photographers.

Next week is John’s turn to lead, so please visit his unique site to see what he’s up to, I am sure looking forward to it.

If you want more information on the Lens-Artist Challenge, please click here.

MAY Squares #13

Flowers, Nature

Becky’s Squares has me mostly documenting the arrival of spring, but who knows I might surprise you with something different too, but not today.

I have been busy, the amount of energy it takes to learn is amazing – I am just not ready to sit by the computer at home after having been on it for 8 hour in the office. But I so love this blogging community that I’m trying to keep up posting something here and there.

This month’s theme is Renew. Or Burgeoning. Or Moving Forward. Or Reconstructing. You get the idea

Least gagea is the smallest lily that grows wild in Finland. Modest-sized least gagea blooms early in the spring while the land is damp, before other plants hide it from view. In Finland it is named after the cuckoo as it blooms when the first of these birds return, and they are in full bloom around Finnish Mothers’ Day, which falls on the second weekend of May. The flowers attract flower flies and beetles to pollinate it, but still it doesn’t produce many seeds.

Spring flowers, that’s it.

MAY Squares #13

Flowers, Nature

Becky’s Square challenge,has me mostly documenting the arrival of spring, but who knows I might surprise you with something different too, but not today.

This month’s theme is Renew. Or Burgeoning. Or Moving Forward. Or Reconstructing. You get the idea

Spring flowers, that’s it.

MAY Squares #12

Flowers, Nature

Becky’s Square challenge,has me mostly documenting the arrival of spring, but who knows I might surprise you with something different too, but not today.

This month’s theme is Renew. Or Burgeoning. Or Moving Forward. Or Reconstructing. You get the idea

New green

MAY Squares #9

Flowers, Nature

Becky’s Square challenge,has me mostly documenting the arrival of spring, but who knows I might surprise you with something different too, but not today.

This month’s theme is Renew. Or Burgeoning. Or Moving Forward. Or Reconstructing. You get the idea

wood sorrel

MAY Squares #8

Flowers, Nature

Becky’s Square s photo challenge has a theme, Renew. Or Burgeoning. Or Moving Forward. Or Reconstructing.

I thought I would take another not so obvious choice, moving forward. they moved, stopped and moved forward in a circle. Sadly I only have these shots taken with my mobile and from rather long distance back, so they are not as crisp as I would prefer, but that’s life. Move one … 🙂

As I am going to post mostly photos of me documenting the spring, these are taken at early spring 🙂 in Australia.

MAY Squares #6

Flowers, Nature

Becky’s Squares photo challenge has me mostly documenting the arrival of spring, but who knows I might surprise you with something different too, but not today.

This month’s theme is Renew. Or Burgeoning. Or Moving Forward. Or Reconstructing. You get the idea

Sadly after a warm and lovely week, and for the most part of it I have stayed outside – and am I glad I did, because the forecast for the coming week is so depressing – temperatures dropping by 10 degrees at least. Yesterday it was +19 C to day 9C.

We are going to our summer house for an extended weekend before I start work on next Monday and the forecast is not promising. This spring is just depressing, come on. Enough of this cold weather.

Maple tree buds.

MAY Squares #5

Flowers, Nature

Becky’s Squares photo challenge has returned. I sadly thought so some time back, but now it appears that it is really back.

This month’s theme is Renew. Or Burgeoning. Or Moving Forward. Or Reconstructing. You get the idea

Lesser celandine is a spring flower which shines in broad-leaved forests and on river banks – until midsummer it is lost, apart from the last remaining white, withered leaves.

Its splendid inflorescence is not just a burden for the species: it is attractive to the human eye and clergymen, farmers and the gentry have planted it in their yards to such an extent that it became a symbol of the better-off classes. Plants that were introduced to flowerbeds to provide some colour in the spring have spread to lawns and park-like nearby forests, where they would not have reached without human help.

As I am going to post mostly photos of me documenting the spring, here are two found yesterday. The bottom one I took because of the background of the photo.

MAY Squares #4

Flowers, Nature

Becky’s Squares photo challenge has returned. I sadly thought so some time back, but now it appears that it is really back.

This month’s theme is Renew. Or Burgeoning. Or Moving Forward. Or Reconstructing. You get the idea

Wood Anemone , When Mothers’ Day arrives in Finland at the beginning of May, the broad-leaved forest floors in the south of the country are a sea of wood anemones as nature comes back to life in all her glory. The time when the anemones flower is called the ‘spring aspect’ of the forest, meaning the time when tree leaves don’t yet cast a shadow on the forest floor.

As I am going to post mostly photos of me documenting the spring, here are two found yesterday. The bottom one I took because of the background of the photo.

MAY Squares #3

Flowers, Nature

Becky’s Squares photo challenge has returned. I sadly thought so some time back, but now it appears that it is really back.

This month’s theme is Renew. Or Burgeoning. Or Moving Forward. Or Reconstructing. You get the idea

As I am going to post mostly photos of me documenting the spring, here are two found yesterday. The bottom one I took because of the background of the photo.

April’s last shots

Captures from Finland, Flowers, Photography

These two shot are taken with my IPhone, the old newspaper clips can be seen on my patio table, the wood planks are from 1914. I have showed similar shots before, but I return them every now and then.