Foray Into The Unknown

Hello All,

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So here I be, contemplating what to write in the first post of my brand-new blog. Blogs...new to me, old to probably the rest of the world. I'm not quite sure what impulsed me to start this, especially since the seemingly boundless prevalence of social media in recent years has become, at least to me, more exhausting than appealing. This being said, let me begin my own experiment into this ever interconnected world.

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Today was wonderfully beautiful day. While the day started out with some overcast, the sun eventually broke free of the clouds and beamed across the cloudless sky. The weekend is something to be cherished, a welcome break from the workweek. For my weekend, I indulged in my new hobby, photography.

Ever since my trip to mainland China in the summer of 2009, I have been increasingly interested in the world of photography. Armed with a Panasonic DMC-ZS3 travel super-zoom, I quickly filled up my 16GB SD card with photos of centuries-old architecture and scenic vistas. Fast-forward almost a year later, I have filled a another 16GB and begun my quest to find the perfect DSLR to delve further into this addictive hobby.

Being in the midst of spring, I ventured out into my backyard where flowering plants of many different types are carefully nurtured by my green-thumbed mother. Yes, for all those who are in disbelief, I do live at home with my parents. =) A'ight, let's have at those pictures, shall we?

Above, we have some clematis flowers that bloomed yesterday. There's another group of these vines but they mostly have not yet opened up. Nonetheless, I took a picture of the soon-to-bloom buds:

An interesting fact about these clematis is that they were once used as a less-pricey alternative to black pepper in the old days. However, as stated in the above Wikipedia link, an alternative is nevertheless, an alternative:

"Unlike black pepper or Capsicum, however, the compounds in clematis cause internal bleeding of the digestive tract if ingested in large amounts. The plants are essentially toxic." 

Moral of the story? Don't eat the clematis! Here are some more pictures of these lovely, and apparently deadly, flowers:

There weren't many of these white cultivars available for me to photograph and most weren't as healthy-looking as this one. One thing that caught my attention about these clematis were the wavy stamen that radiated from the center of the flowers. This presented an opportunity to experiment with the macro function.

The above picture is a close-up of the purple clematis. Yellow stamens have begun to unfurl from the center and eventually, the ovary will be exposed. It's interesting how different flowers have different colors schemes...I suppose the contrast is to draw attention to the flower's "naughty bits". Here's the white clematis for comparison:

The white clematis exchanges the yellow stamens of the purple clematis for dark-violet-tipped stamens, which are pretty cool. They remind me of the wriggling tentacles of a squid. If I had to choose between the two types of clematis, I'd choose the white one for its cooler stamens; however, the purple petals are a bit more lively than the white ones.

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I hope you've all enjoyed my first post...I have more photos from my collection to share and even more to take in the coming days! Please feel free to comment on anything here, whether it be my writing style, photography, or content (other subject matter will be broached in future posts). For those who would like larger images of my photos for use as desktop wallpaper, let me know and I'll post them here. Thanks for reading!

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