This year we had a record number of irises flowering in the garden. Before budding started, I estimated that there were over 40 plants that would flower — I stopped counting stalks at 29. For a couple of weeks every year, near the end of May, these flowers create a welcome addition to out garden in spring.
It is always difficult to make images of irises, especially macro shots like these. I like to get the “beard” in focus. However, it is easy to miss focus, especially when a breeze is present. Also, the depth of field at close focus is really narrow, so the entire beard cannot be sharp.
Iris buds are really interesting to photograph, before the flower emerges. There are greens, oranges and yellows with plenty of details in the veins. In this image there is a hint of the color of the flower — a deep blue/purple in this example.
This year, flower stalks from two adjacent plants were really close. I made this image of the pair flowers the day before both flowers opened — almost symmetrical!
Iris stalks typically have several flowers — one or more at the tip and several growing out of the stalk lower down. In this image, this plant had two flowers, one at tip and the second just behind, lower down on the stalk.
The iris leaves also make for some interesting images. In this image, we just have a forest of leaves! Each leaf seems to have an edge that is a paler yellow/green color that the rest of the leaf.
I made a second image, that I rendered as a monochrome black and white image. Here one can see the pale edges of the leaves.
Recently, I made a few images with the Lensbaby Velvet lens. At wide apertures, the iris flower has a soft focus glow that is very pleasing.
All our iris flowers have now willowed away. Every year, it becomes a challenge to make some interesting images of these wonderful plants.