It's so lovely we're up at dawn

Our meadow is so good right now that my friends from my camera club are eager to be here at the ungodly hour of of 6:30 am to give it a go. I've got two more people coming tomorrow morning. Coffee is on me.

You can see why we tend to do close-up work. There is so much natural exuberance that to get a shot that works, you really have to focus on details.

Today's guest photo: bergamot, also called bee balm, and here's why:

Photo: Margaret Grant (who also took my blog bio picture)
From me: another overlay, combining
a sharp exposure with a soft one
© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

Scenes from our meadow

The meadow on our property is my favorite site for garden photography right now.

By nature I'm a night-hawk, not an early riser, but it's rewarding to get up at 6 in the morning and go out with the camera to capture the wildflowers.

I need to get up early because some time between 7:30 and 8am it gets too breezy to photograph. When the flowers start dancing, I go in for breakfast.

These pictures are from this morning and early yesterday. The dominant prairie plants in flower at the moment are the greyheaded coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), Echinaceas (E. purpurea, and E. pallida, the latter just past its prime), wild bergamot or beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) and prairie blazing star (Liatris pycnostachya), above right, with Ratibida.

Prairie ballerinas: grey-headed coneflowers (Ratibida pinnata)
Purple coneflowers with bergamot
For more on our meadow and how we got it established from seed in 2000, visit this page on my website.

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener