Flora

Macro picture of Wild daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) sprouts covered in snow – Global warming?

Macro picture of Wild daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) sprouts covered in snow
Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera February 25th 2008. Click image for larger view.
The Wild daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) have been sprouting as early as mid January this year. This is extremely early for us in Northern Norway. Although we have had frost, snow and thawing several times the Wild daffodil can handle extreme conditions very good so I think these sprouts will survive.
In Norwegian this plant is called “PÃ¥skelilje” (Easter lily) because it usually show us its beautiful yellow flowers around Easter.

Yesterday I heard a meteorologist saying that so far this have been warmest winter ever recorded in Norway. I know that doesn’t prove anything, but it sure smells like global warming…

I can’t wait for the spring to come so I can photograph the flowers in full bloom. Meanwhile you can see some of my flower pictures from last year here. If I had to choose the picture of the Purple Saxifrage flower are my favorite because they were the first wild flowers I saw last spring.

Information about the picture:
Camera: Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera
Exposure: 0.013 sec (1/80)
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 35 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Lens: Olympus Zuiko Digital 35mm F3.5 Macro
Location: Laupstad (Andørja), Troms in northern Norway

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Picture of grass straws and boathouses as background – Winter scenery in Northern Norway


Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera February 22nd 2008. Click image for larger view.
In this picture you can see some straws growing at the coast in Northern Norway. I love the texture of this kind of straws so I thought they would look great together with the old boathouses.
I wanted to get the boathouses a bit out of focus so I pushed the aperture down f/3.5 and focused on the grass straws to get the depth of field that I thought would suit the composition.

Check out my other boathouse pictures here. I’m starting to get a nice collection of boathouse photos 🙂

Information about the picture:
Camera: Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 22 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Lens: Olympus Zuiko Digital 11-22mm F2.8-3.5
Location: Ånstad (Andørja), Troms in Northern Norway

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My favorite macro pictures from 2007 taken in Northern Norway

I’m a big fan of taking macro pictures, especially close up pictures of insects.
Here is a selection of my favorite macro pictures that I took in 2007.
Hope there will be lots of insects and other creatures to photograph in 2008 😉

Macro photo of hermit crab and barnacle

Macro photo of hoverfly on dandelion flower

Macro photo of five-spot burnet moths mating on flowers

Macro photo of Common Hawker dragonfly

A closer view of a snail

Check out my archive of macro photos.

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Photo of Garden Angelica plant on a winter day in Northern Norway

Photo of Garden Angelica plant on a winter day in Northern Norway
Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera December 8th 2007. Click image for larger view.

In this picture you can see a plant called Garden Angelica (Angelica archangelica ssp. litoralis), also known as Holy Ghost, Wild Celery, and Norwegian Angelica, in its winter suit. The plant grows wild in northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, but is also cultivated in France.
Garden angelica is well known to be used as spice, food and medicine here in Norway. Back in the days Sami people and Eskimos used Garden angelica as a way of preventing scurvy.

Check out this other Arctic plant called Roseroot that I photographed a while back.

As you might notice I played with my flash in this picture. I used the flash because there was so little light and I wanted to keep the sunset colors in the horizon. It was taken midday so you can see that we don’t have much light here.

Information about the picture:
Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera
Exposure: 0.067 sec (1/15)
Aperture: f/8
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Lens: Olympus Zuiko Digital 11-22mm F2.8-3.5
Flash used
Location: Laupstad (Andørja), Troms in Northern Norway

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Macro photo of pink primula flowers with water drops

Macro photo of pink primula flowers with water drops
Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera May 3rd 2007. Click image for larger view.

Time for a picture from the spring to remind ourselves of warmer times to come 🙂

The Primula got it’s name from the Latin word Primus that means “the first one”. It got it’s name because it is one of the first flowers to blossom in the spring.
The flowers are native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere, south into high altitude tropical mountains in Ethiopia, Indonesia and New Guinea, and are also found in temperate southern South America.
There are amazingly 400-500 species of Primula and some of species are called primrose, auricula, cowslip and oxlip. I have just seen a handful, but there are some really nice color combinations out there.

Up here in the north it is a very usual garden flower and it is spreading everywhere. Have you got Primula in your garden? Feel free to leave a comment 🙂

Check out a few other flower pictures I have photographed:

  • Taking pictures while laying in a buttercup meadow
  • Macro photo of kingcup flower
  • Macro photo of forget-me-not flowers

  • Information about the picture:
    Camera: Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera
    Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
    Aperture: f/4
    Focal Length: 35 mm
    ISO Speed: 400
    Lens: Olympus Zuiko Digital 35mm F3.5 Macro
    Location: Laupstad (Andørja), Troms in northern Norway

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