The Mansurovs » Flowers & Macro

Photographing What You Love

Roman — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:55:08 +0000

Yesterday, I spent some time looking at the infamous “Stages of a photographer” chart again. The graph starts out with a blue line – the one that marks “How good you think you are” – at the top of the scale. It mentions that the photographer, at an early stage of his/her photography career shoots mostly flowers and cats (or anything else that’s pretty, cute or more or less easily accessible). The green line marks the actual quality of the photos, which is at the very bottom of the chart. It all makes sense – at one point, we all thought our work was, well, pretty.

Then I imagined there must be plenty of people who have been through other stages of that chart, and yet still shoot flowers and cats today. How would those guys feel after seeing the chart? Discouraged, offended maybe?

As a photographer, you can get good at photographing anything, including flowers and cats. Want to be inspired by some beautiful images of cats? Check out this page on 500px.com. Who says only newbies photograph cats and flowers? Try searching for “flowers” on 500px and you will be amazed by some stunning imagery.

The photographs in this article were captured by my girlfriend, Bee, who loves shooting flowers! (check out some more of her work here). She has a great artistic “eye” and she is much more creative than I am – it becomes even more apparent when we photograph weddings together.

Nothing else matters but your own choice of what to photograph as long as you enjoy it. Landscapes, portraits, street or even HDR – if it’s your thing, do it and don’t listen to what others say. Let your artistic vision develop and create, and someday, it will help you become a better photographer. Who knows, maybe one day you will have a collection of art that sells for millions. You never know where your creativity could take you.

Just do what you love. Stay inspired and create.

Mount Rainier and Olympic Photos

Nasim Mansurov — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 20:09:48 +0000

The drive from Montana to Washington was beautiful. I really wanted to stop in many different locations and take more pictures, but I had a set and compressed schedule that I did not want to change. It was rainy and wet at Mount Rainier, which is quite normal at this time of the year. The snow was everywhere though and it turned out that I was there too early. Should have done my homework. I wanted to take pictures of wildflowers, but because of the high snow accumulation this year, there were very few areas in the park where you could find them. Apparently, the best time to be there is late August to early September. Oh well! I still managed to take some good waterfall pictures though:

So many waterfalls and streams there, I had a hard time deciding where to stop and take pictures.

Took this picture on my way out of Mount Rainier, where I only got to spend a day. Wildflowers was what I was after, so there was really no reason to stay there further.

When I got to Olympic, I was disappointed with the bad weather. From the rainy and wet Mt Rainier, to sunny coast, the sun disappeared behind the thick clouds and haze during sunset and I unfortunately did not get to take any good images. Here are a couple I took, but I am not happy with any of them:

Here is a giant snail that I encountered in the rain-forest:

I then headed to the rain-forest, hoping to take better pictures there:

This one is my favorite:

The weather next day was not any better and it was cloudy all morning:

The weather forecast was showing bad weather all week, so without waiting more I packed up and left to Yosemite National Park in California.

Some sort of crab

Nasim Mansurov — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 05:48:24 +0000

Honestly, I don’t know what this is, but it sure looks like some sort of crab. I captured this bad boy at the Channel Islands National Park during my last trip. Any ideas on what type of crab it is? I tried to search on Google and couldn’t find a darn thing…

P.S. It turns out to be “Sally Lightfoot”. Thanks to Rich for identifying the crab!

Fall leaves after rain

Nasim Mansurov — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:57:23 +0000

Captured these leaves after rain in Rocky Mountain National Park:

Blue Flowers

Nasim Mansurov — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:51:40 +0000

I first thought these were Bell Flowers, but after looking at some images on Google, I discovered that they look different. Any ideas on what these are?

Flower

Nasim Mansurov — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:28:05 +0000

Captured with Nikon D300

Water Lily

Nasim Mansurov — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 07:28:08 +0000

Captured this water lily at the Denver Zoo:

Flowers…

Nasim Mansurov — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:15:16 +0000

I’m not much into Macro, but do take pictures when there is a good opportunity. I liked the volume of flowers here and snatched a pic:

More macro

Nasim Mansurov — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:50:19 +0000

Don’t know the name of this fruit/plant, but thought it was pretty. Not sure if the white one is not ripe, or maybe it is simply colorless?

Butterfly

Nasim Mansurov — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:35:11 +0000

When there is no wildlife to shoot, I go macro!