A day at the Rose Garden

Rose Garden Winterthur Switzerland

Yesterday was a really beautiful day here in Winterthur Switzerland. I headed out to the Rose Garden which is just 10 min walk behind my house. Unfortunately many roses got beaten by the heavy hail storm the day before yesterday. So they were not as pretty anymore. But that makes it more interesting to shoot photos. You really have to look and find the beautiful ones. The nice weather made the colors really pop. There were also tons of bees getting the nectar out of the roses and at some point I was more focussed on the bees than on the flowers. Crazy little busy animals !!! But so nice and a real challenge to photograph them.

View over Winterthur seen from the Rose Garden (click to enlarge)

Bees getting the nectar, also my photo of the week. (click to enlarge)

With the sun rising and creating a harsh bright light the shooting conditions were getting a bit more challenging. I choose to shoot with spot metering and single focus point. This creates a darker background while the object will be light. In post processing I make the object a bit brighter so the rose really comes out. I brought 2 cameras, 1 DSLR with a 135mm lens and my mirrorless with a 16-55mm zoom. Nearly all shots were taken with the DSLR and the 135mm due to the better object isolation and more creamy bokeh.

Start blooming (click to enlarge)