back-lit leaves

Bob Blackburn Reserve, Seville Grove, Western Australia
Google Pixel 6A

I have mentioned it before - the best camera is the one that's with you (originally attributed to Chase Jarvis).
Like most people, I have a mobile phone in my pocket most of the time, but the camera on my previous phone was very disappointing.
After recently switching to a Google Pixel 6A, the image quality from the Pixel's camera is far superior, so I am looking forward to using my phone for more photography in the future.

autumn colours

Chinese Tallowtree (Triadica Sebifera)

back yard at home, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, Asahi Pentax SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 @50mm, 1/400 sec, f/2, ISO100

Autumn is one of my favourite times of the year. I love the weather, and I love the changing colours of the trees.

We have a large Chinese Tallowtree in the back yard, and my office window looks out onto this tree. Working at home for the last 14 weeks (due to Covid-19 restrictions) has allowed me to observe the tree much more closely than I normally would, and I have really enjoyed watching the colours change.

This photo is from two weeks ago, when there were still a lot of leaves of various colours on the tree. The tree is now almost completely bare.

This photo was taken with an old manual-focus Asahi Pentax SMC Takumar 50mm lens converted to Canon EF mount that I bought from a friend some time ago.

Canon EOS 50D, 24-105mm f/4L IS @105mm, 1/500 sec, f/6.3, ISO100

Here are a few more photos from a visit to Lesmurdie Falls last week. I really enjoy looking for different wildflowers, and photographing them.

Canon EOS 50D, 24-105mm f/4L IS @65mm, 1/60 sec, f/5.6, ISO100

Butterfly on Everlasting Flower

Lesmurdie Falls National Park, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-105mm f/4L IS @105mm, 1/1250 sec, f/5.6, ISO100

Spring is definitely here. While walking at Lesmurdie Falls, we saw a lot of flowers, including many of the everlastings like the ones shown here. The bees and butterflies were out in force, making the most of them!

Bee on Everlasting Flower

Lesmurdie Falls National Park, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-105mm f/4L IS @105mm, 1/2000 sec, f/4.5, ISO100

Occasionally I like to go through some of my older photos, and look for things that I may have missed when I originally took the photos. Here is one from a school excusions I attended with my younger son, at Cohuna Wildlife Park.
I believe this is a Osteospermum, from the daisy family Asteraceae.

purple daisy

Cohuna Wildlife Park, Byford, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @67mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO500

carpet of daisies

Warrdagga Rock, Ninghan Station, Western Australia

While on a recent school camp a few hundred kilometres north of Perth, I was hoping for a lot of wildflowers in the area. The weather conditions this year were not optimal for wildflowers, so there weren't all that many.
However, there were plenty of daisies growing near our camp.

In the top photo, I got down low, laying on the ground, to get a shot with some flowers in focus in the foreground (complete with a few bees), and a carpet of yellow flowers leading into the distance.
For the second photo, I decided to include the open gate in the frame, giving the appearance of an open gateway leading to the flowers.

gateway

Warrdagga Rock, Ninghan Station, Western Australia

I love the red, orange and yellow colours of the autumn leaves. Today, the first day of winter, I was pruning a tree in our back yard with two of my children, and when I saw these back-lit leaves on our Chinese Tallowtree, I had to stop and grab my camera.

backlit autumn leaves

Chinese Tallowtree (Triadica Sebifera)

back yard at home, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 35mm f/2 @35mm, 1/400 sec, f/8, ISO100

pine needles

Kyu-Shiba-rikyu Gardens, Tokyo, Japan
Canon EOS 50D, 24-105mm f/4L IS @40mm, 1/100 sec, f/5, ISO100

The Japanese people take their trees pretty seriously. After all, they have been practising the art of bonsai for more than a thousand years. I noticed similar levels of dedication with the pine trees in the gardens that I visited while in Tokyo earlier this year.

fallen petals

Kyu-Shiba-rikyu Gardens, Tokyo, Japan
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @22mm, 1/100 sec, f/8, ISO100

Late last month I spent a week in Tokyo, Japan, on a business trip. My visit to Tokyo happened to co-incide with the cherry blossoms (known as "sakura" locally), something which typically only lasts a week or so.
I had an opportunity to visit some of the parks nearby my hotel, and took some photos of the wonderful sight of many trees completely covered in white and pink cherry blossoms.