Jardin Botanique de Montreal

Flowers are probably my favorite things to take pictures of. The vibrant colors, the textures, the intricate, dainty details. Ever since I learned how to use my camera as I mentioned in this post, I have been ever more excited to take pictures!!

We were just in Montreal last week and it was

gorgeous, especially when we visited the Jardin botanique de Montréal / Montréal Botanical Garden.

Here are a few beauties...straight out of the camera :) No photoshop!!

Inside the Botanical Garden, there was a rose garden with a collection of over 10,000 roses. It was incredible.

I really loved taking pictures of the pollen from each of the flowers I saw using the Super Macro function on my camera.

It always makes me nervous when taking my pictures because the screen on my camera is SO small. What looks good on that screen, may be blurry or grainy when I load them onto the computer. But in this case, I was just so thrilled when I came home and saw the pictures on my computer for the first time. They were perfect!

Another thing I loved was this Poppy!

Doesn't it look like crinkled paper? Sooo beautiful and delicate. What I thought was even cooler is that they were growing out of cabbage!?!

I could do a post on Poppies alone...they are awesome. And I took a TON of pictures of all the

different colors :)

I have no idea what this flower is...but how COOL is it? My husband loved this one the most, of all the flower pictures I took!

It's almost electric for me, in a way!

I love Dahlias, too. They're big and bold and they have so many beautiful layers. Just look at the colors on this one...a bunch of these yummies in a vase is a decorator's Heaven :)

I'm not quite sure what this one is...my guess is some kind of daisy with the way the petals are. I've never seen anything like this one. I love the stiffness of the pollen (inside of the flower...whatever you want to call it :) And I love the way the sun is hitting on the left side of it! It could look even been if photoshopped, but I really wanted to focus this post on the raw images, untouched!

Not sure what this one definitely is, either, but I'm pretty sure it's in the daisy family also....it almost looks like a sunflower a little bit, except the center is much more subtle than the normal black-center of a sunflower.

I had SO much fun taking these pictures and I hope that you've enjoyed browsing through them!

My husband was so happy with the way these came out and the way I took them, that he actually told me I should frame them and display around the house! What a sweetheart :)

Come back soon for some architectural and miscellaneous pictures that I took from Montreal!

Have a fabulous day!

Hugs and Love,

J

Sweet Sweets!

Hey there!

You'll be glad you stopped by today...I have some pretty pastries to show you from my trip up to New Jersey / Philadelphia a couple months ago.

I should be packing now for my trip up to Montreal tomorrow, but of course, I'm procrastinating :)

I was emptying the pictures on my ca

mera to create room on the memory card and came across these pictures I forgot about. This little bakery in Philly was delightfully cute. The window displays were uber-cute! It's called Termini and if you're in that area...you

really need to stop in for some goodies.

Now, I'm kinda proud of myself because I finally learned how to use my camera after 3 years of having it. I don't have anything super amazing, but it's a perfect little camera for me. The Canon PowerShot S315

is a nice mix between a point and shoot and a fancy professional camera :) My husband's uncle is a photographer in New Jersey (I'll post pictures of his amazing studio soon) and he was pretty impressed with my little camera!

That was exciting to hear, lol.

Anyway...I've always shot with auto and a flash. Isn't that what everyone was taught? Well it's wrong (well, it's not as great as it could be, I should say!)

Uncle Jeff told me that it's really important to experiment with different settings, and he never uses anything other than Aperture and Shutter Speed settings (which on my

camera are Av and Tv).

So, this trip I decided to use none other than those two settings. These pictures on this posts are SOOTC (straight out of the camera) and I am still kind of in shock...I really like the way these came out -- WAY better than if I would have used just an Auto setting.

Don't those Cappuccino Biscottis look incredible? They were! I love how just a few in the center are in focus and the rest is blurred. I did that! Me! I'm just so excited that I'm finally taking good pictures with the camera that I already own!!

And these cupcakes...these were practically in the back room and I was behind the counter! My zoom is pretty good, I'd like to think! I have to confess, I didn't have a cupcake, but they look so fun and yummy!!

Last picture I'd like to end on -- not exactly sure what is chocolate covered, but it looked so good. It was really difficult not sampling everything in the bakery! (Not my best picture, but I don't have time to photoshop it before I really NEED to start packing!!)

Which is now, lol. I have to wake up at 5am to catch an 8:30 international flight at an airport an hour away (and get breakfast...and coffee).

Can't wait to post more pictures of my awesome New Jersey / Philadelphia trip!! And I am so excited to be using my camera in Montreal -- I hope to get some awesome pictures :)

Have a great week and weekend...I'll see you next Tuesday!

Hugs and Love,

J