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Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Wildflower Festival! (Part 1)





Wildflower Festival's officially commenced - as evident from the pics above...and Kings Park is just teeming with all these beautiful blooms! I went to Kings Park on 3 different occasions, and managed to compile quite a number of flower pictures. It was worth all the bending forward/backward, sneezing, sniffling and all! 

I did manage to catch the Richard Avedon photo exhibition ("People") on one of those days. I've always liked black and white photography (though I don't do much of it), and so this exhibition was definitely an eye-opener for me. The vulnerable side of Marilyn Monroe, the muscular body of ballerina Rudolf Nureyev, the exotic Elizabeth Taylor look...all captured in gorgeous black and white photos. Oh yes - and the song "People" from Funny Girl (1964) was stuck in my head throughout that day! Glad that the photo exhibition's till November - which means that if I feel like going back, I could actually do so :)

Anyway - my photo trips usually start off with a meal of some sorts. This time - it was a trip to Koko Black in the city - where I got my usual alchemy cake, plus a light hot choc (not so much cream this time!).








After I had finished my lunch + snack (Koko Black), it was time to head to Kings Park! Weather's been excellent these days! And there's some artwork done on the grass in Kings Park too! I went on the glass bridge too - and found some other flowers on the other side. Was a good discovery!







Interactive displays around lampposts near the war memorial - these were so adorable! My favourite one is the mushrooms one...I like mushrooms very very much anyway!







Went straight to one of the wildflower fields, and did the mandatory "camera facing up" shot...I did some last year too. I used Vladimir Script for my watermark last year (2nd and 3rd pics below). This year I've been using Segoe Print mainly (as seen in the watermark on the glass bridge pic)...though this time I used something else.






I think Segoe Print suits best, to be honest - it's quite consistent with my handwriting. And this is my handwriting. No kidding - this IS my actual handwriting.




Anyway - back to wildflowers. All I can say is - they are everywhere!! In all sorts of shapes and sizes! The most common ones on display are these "paper daisies". "Paper daisies" are native to Western Australia, and in spring, they cover vast areas. One of my mates went to the countryside one spring, and she had a really nice time running through the flower fields. Gosh I'm so envious of her - when I get my car next year, I'm gonna go to the countryside in spring to take pics of REAL flower fields!

One thing interesting about "paper daisies" - they have different centres...some of them have yellow centres, while others have more intricate black-and-yellow centres. 






Most of the ones I found came in different shades of pink. And I think I went totally overboard with the photos...but they were just so beautiful! And I couldn't resist taking pics of them!










The bigger "paper daisies" were, of course, easier to photograph. But look closer and you'll see these cute little ones too. I was really thankful for having a telephoto lens with a build-in macro function, as that really helped with depth of field and all. I have had the same lens since 2010, and have been using manual focus on the lens since 2011 (the autofocus died on me - but I don't really favour that autofocus anyway). I think I enjoyed photographing the small "paper daisies" more - a little more challenging but fun nevertheless!










Apart from the different shades of pink above, there were also white ones (some are 'pure white'; others have either a bit of a pinkish hue, or a creamy hue), and I took pics of some of them too! 










Some of the "paper daisies" had yet to open, and here they are! The small one looks super cute!





When I was visiting Vienna last year, I made a new friend. She was such a lovely lady - brought us around the city area and to various places...and even brought us to her apartment where I had a nice time playing piano. All I can say is - I'm really, really thankful to her for giving me the opportunity to play piano in Vienna - twice. That means two ticks off my bucket list...because I've always wanted to play piano in Vienna! After all, Vienna is the City of Music :)

Anyway this lovely lady loves purple - all shades of purple in fact. So I decided to take pics of purple flowers to add on to the 'collection' that I already have - and all these pics have been sent to her!







Yellow seems to be quite a common colour too! Spotted some beautiful yellow blooms alongside the pink and white "paper daisies". Most of these were pretty small, but cute nevertheless! I like warm colours (orange is my favourite colour), but I didn't find any orange flowers. But yellow is nice too! I particularly like it when the sun shines on the flowers - bringing out the yellow colour even more.













My first impression of this golden-yellow flower? Corn!! 

Nah it is NOT CORN. It's a bunch of flowers against a very clear blue sky. I spotted this after walking across the glass bridge, and HAD to have a pic of it!




I think kangaroo paw flowers are pretty fascinating too - there're some around the university where I study. But there're lots more around Kings Park! And I'm so glad I managed to get some pics of them! I don't have many pics of these flowers.






To end off the "flower spam", here's a pic of light purple star-shaped flowers. Pretty cool! These were really small and quite challenging to photograph, but I did it in the end! :)




Took a train to Fremantle after taking over 100 photos of flowers (I took AGES to choose the ones to upload!)...and had the mandatory hot chocolate at Theobroma! I think the people know me really well now - I always go for dark hot chocolate, and most of the time I either have banana bread or scrambled eggs with Turkish bread. I'm quite predictable! :)




Will be posting more pics in the near future! I am really enjoying the spring weather! So glad the rainy days are over for now! More spring flowers coming up in the next post!