Since I bought a MacBook last December, I’ve been flailing around a bit in Aperture, reading the manual and watching some tutorials. It definitely has more options than Zoombrowser, the program that came with my Canon Digital Rebel. At the moment, it seems like too many options, but I’m enjoying learning my way around.

I took this picture of a blue-topped tree in the Japanese Garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens. I’m not including the “master” here; the first “version” has shadows turned all the way up. Now you can see the house in the background.In this version, I left shadows alone and increase the tint and vibrancy settings. I also played with the black point setting. As far as I can tell, upping the black point setting has the same effect as upping the contrast.And in this one, I turned hue and saturation down and luminance up.I liked turning the top of the tree white without having to do any spot editing (which I don’t know how to do yet).

None of these pictures seems really sharp, despite my use of a tripod. Right now I don’t have a way to take pictures without touching the camera, so I think I was moving it just a little.

Every year I go to Blossoms of Light at the Denver Botanic Gardens. I prefer it to Wildlights at the Zoo. (For those readers in south Denver, there are also lights displays at Chatfield Reservoir and the Wildlife Experience. I haven’t been to those.) Here’s a close-up of that blue tree, which was difficult to photograph, since it was across a walkway from a pond. My favorite display was this fountain at the end of the Perennial Walk.I played around with the image a bit in Aperture to achieve this effect, which, I admit, is silly,but it reminded me of this picture I took at Carlsbad Caverns almost 3 years ago. The sign above it reads, “Favor de tocar esta formacion.” In other words, touch this one all you want, but don’t touch the real formations in the cave, because you’ll damage them.

For more photographs from this visit to Blossoms of Light, check out Girls Trek Too.

The instructor for my summer garden photography class at the Denver Botanic Gardens, Jim Steinberg, said that the eye goes to the brightest spot or the sharpest spot in the photograph. In that case, a photo like this one can never work because the bright, blurry flower is competing with the light, focused leaf. What do you think?

I took this photo on Friday, August 28, the day of Fete des Fleurs. Since the Botanic Gardens were closed when I arrived, I walked around the corner and photographed flowers on 12th Avenue.