Slatsz Wildflower Walks 2016: 17 May 17, 2016

5/19/2016

12:08

I’m furious that I have had so many bleached images. I suppose my old camera is worn out.

I asked the internet if digital cameras wear out and got about every answer imaginable, yes, no and maybe. Moving parts can wear, of course. They tell me dirt can get on the sensors. There are three places in Spokane that will clean cameras. I noticed that the place that interested me, Camera Care, specified SLR cameras. My camera is not SLR.

I emailed him and he said bring it in, he’ll look at it. Be sure the battery is charged.

It occurred to me that a low battery might be causing the problem. So I charged the battery, [the battery is quite new,] and went out to take photos and see if that made the difference. It didn’t seem to. The bleaching was still a problem.

It also occurred to me that the problem may be the user. Fundamental ignorance.

I seldom mess with the many settings available on the camera. I decided to do that too.

Unfortunately, I left my audio recorder behind so I don’t have a record of the experiments I tried. So I get to do it all again. Yes. I had pen and paper.

I didn’t intend to be out long. I was out about an hour. I did want to reshoot the Eriogonum with a mix of red petals and white petals and check some species I had seen in bud.

The light was very ‘hot’ and I’m fairly sure that is part of the problem. The camera can’t manage as large a range of light to dark as the eye.

My attempts to photograph plants laying on my black velour back sheet often fail. I try to focus on the stem of the plant but the camera probably sees part of the black velour. It’s set for ‘point focus’ but who knows?

The best of these photos were too light. I had to reduce the mid-tones to get good images. Even the landscapes needed help. The worst of the photos don’t seem to have mid-tones, not in the bleached areas. There’s nothing there. Attempting to burn them in gets little or nothing. And the color is wrong.

Sorry about the long whine.

I drove to the west end of the park to check the circular patch of buckwheat and re-photograph the patch with red and white petals. The circular patch showed little change, no blossoms. It was very difficult to get adequate images of the red petals.

Eriogonum species, petals red and white, mixed

I drove around the park to Euclid and parked farther west than usual to try to find the Lomatium species I want to identify. I didn’t find them. I did find a single Rosa woodsii in bloom in a tangle of brambles. My fancy telescoping walking stick fell apart a couple of times trying to get through to it through deep humus. It was that kind of day.

I tried several camera settings but, as I said, I don’t have a record of them and I don’t see a lot of difference in the computer.

The single rose blossom was quite deformed and rather interesting so I gave it a lot of TLC.

Rosa woodsii

I noticed Achillea millefolium, yarrow or milfoil, in bud. My photos of the plant are totally worthless. I’ve been failing to get adequate images of the leaves. I salvaged a couple of foliage photos. The still need to be improved.

Achillea millefolium, yarrow

I searched the ‘rock pools’ of the area … little regions of cobble sized broken basalt … for a strange plant I have seen there in the past and didn’t find it.

I have missed some great skies the last couple of outings. I pointed the camera up for today’s clouds.

Landscape, clouds

I found Scutellaria angustifolia, narrow leaf skullcap in bloom. They are in several environments but often you find them, rather alone, coming up through the ‘rock pools’. The photos of the blossoms don’t capture their character but have the strange features at the base of the flowers. The photo of the ‘rock pool’ was nearly totally bleached. I ‘brought it up’ as best I could.

Scutellaria angustifolia, narrow leaf skullcap

I searched, once again, the little damp spot where I find Besseya rubra and an Arnica fulgens, leopard bane. I found them both, long past bloom. I can’t believe I haven’t seen them in them earlier, I searched for them often. Perhaps the deep foliage, there, is dying back a little.

I also found a Delphinium, there, that I have called D. distichum. I’ve been looking at the many Delphinium photos in Burke, today, and I don’t find any leaves like these.

I’ll assume that this one is starved for light? No. Starved for light the leaves would be broader. Perhaps they are starved for water.

Delphinium distichum, maybe

Delphinium fruit are follicles. The fruit is dehiscent [it opens on maturity]. It opens on only one side. It has many seeds. It usually splits down the ventral [front] surface. You can see a dim line in the ventral surface of the middle follicle of the photo above.