2020 Trip Chronicles: Page 2

San Jose Municipal Rose Garden 1of2

By the end of April, the two weeks of serpentine wildflower blooming due to our good early April rains were past their aesthetic peak, so I wondered what else locally might be worthwhile. Well, that was not going to be in any of our rural park areas as landscapes became less wet green and more dry yellow-brown. Over 4 decades, all my serious photography has been in natural areas. But with shelter in place here in Santa Clara County, with driving limited to our county, I decided to visit our nationally acclaimed San Jose Municipal Rose Garden city park that is just 3.7 miles from my residence.

www.sanjoseca.gov SJ Municipal Rose Garden

This link also contains a garden plot map and detailed information on each rose variety:

Friends of San Jose Rose Garden (FOSJRG)

I had visited the park years ago and was aware it had been revitalized a few years before. My knowledge of cultured flowers, gardening, or cultivated roses is minimal. With a couple of acres of dozens of species, it would also be at peak bloom. Thus, I got my close-up camera gear together and drove over to the park as it opened at 8am Thursday April 30, 2020, as early morning before 10am is when breezes are usually calmest, necessary for my focus stack registration. The majority of images below were shot with my Sigma F2.8 60mm lens, with a few using a 12mm extension tube. During sunny skies, I would use my 32-inch collapsible diffusion disk and often used that disk and another reflective silver disk to block breezes.

A key reason I had never worked with cultivated flowers before is that serious flower photography, especially floral vase arrangements, are often performed with expensive professional studio equipment and lighting conditions. Thus, it is not a photography subject area amateurs can easily stand out in. However, with the rise of focus stack blending, multiple frames can be combined into a composite image. So it is now possible to create sharp images as was never previously possible on such 3-dimensional subjects versus the classic limited depth-of-field bokeh style.

The more serious strategy is to cut perfect blooms, bring them into studios, and photograph them in absolutely still air with optimal professional lighting while still fresh. A much more difficult task is doing so outdoors in gardens where breezes make focus stacking a difficult task in post-processing, and one must deal with limitations of tripod camera positions and especially backgrounds. Many of the below images required over 6 hours of my work, which is primarily manually selecting small 100% pixel sections for a composite image from 10 to 30 shots where just focus points are changed at a few apertures. Note, I have not yet identified some of the flower names, as I did not bother to check what I was targeting initially.

Upon arriving and walking into the rows of different colorful rose varieties, I immediately knew this was going to be a productive decision. Cultivated rose varieties are termed cultivars, with most created from non-seed processes that include hybrids that cross-pollinate between species. Without wasting time, I worked with a group of roses named Rainbow Sorbet that grew higher than others, which I could place against the blue sky per image at page top. During my natural wildflower work, a favorite strategy is to look for flower situations where I might isolate especially blooms up against blue sky as a background. The text in brown is from the above garden website.
Per FOSJRG: Floribunda. Deep pink, yellow edges. Mild, sweet fragrance. 18 petals. Average diameter: 3.5 feet. Continuous (perpetual) bloom throughout the season. Pointed, ovoid buds. Edged in deep pink, this golden yellow beauty blooms early and abundantly and continues all season long. Remarkable disease resistance and very winter hardy. Medium green foliage. Height of 4 to 5 feet.

SU06584-01 3300x5400 pixels 1 frame 18 image focus stack blend A6000 60mm diffusion disk
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This next image above shows 2 rose blooms of Crescendo, with beautiful form and colors. Note the dew drops on the petals in the lower frame. Would make a fine background for some poster graphic like LOVE YOU. During the night, sprinkler watering occurs, which will leave water droplets on many plot roses early in the morning, but which tends to dry out quickly once the sun and breezes arrive. Wild roses from the genus Rosa, which these plants were developed from, have 5 petals and many anthers. Cultivars have many petals that were bred from anthers changed into petals. Per FOSJRG:
Bred by Dr. Keith W. Zary, Hybrid Tea. Pink and white. Strong fragrance. 20 petals. Average diameter: 5 feet. Very large, full (26-40 petals), borne mostly in solitary bloom form. Blooms in flushes throughout the season. Pointed, ovoid buds. Medium, upright. Large, glossy, dark green foliage. Height of 5 feet.

The more difficult challenge in such large gardens with dozens to hundreds of blooms in each cultivar plot was selecting a suitable aesthetic subject that I could set my tripod and camera up from a distance of one to three feet, reasonably equidistant, that would fill a rectangular frame with usable backgrounds. Although my 32" diffusion disk can affect direct sunlight, it cannot block bright sunny areas more than a couple of feet behind a flower subject, which can be aesthetically distracting. Thus, I often looked for shaded areas like the above that allowed a dark background. Even with focus stacking, there are limitations due to parallax errors as a lens gets closer to subjects.

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The next image above shows a well-watered rose with water droplets. Rose bushes in the shade and closer to the ground tended to have more water on them. The water drops don't always positively complement an image, but here they do well, in part because the flower itself has a spotted red and white nature.

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Returning the next day, Friday, May 1, 2020, this next rose was in a patch of striking, intensely saturated roses that glowed in the sunlight. Curled petals formed interesting patterns. Although I would return several times over 2 weeks, twice I did not take any shots when breezes appeared early, and other times, as on this day, I just took a few shots before leaving. Per FOSJRG:
Bred by Christian Bedard. Miniature. Deep pink. None to mild fragrance. 17 to 33 petals. Average diameter 2.25 inches. Medium, very double, in small clusters, cupped bloom form. Blooms in flushes throughout the season. Pointed, ovoid buds. Medium, bushy, upright, well-branched. Small, glossy, dark green foliage. 7 leaflets. Height of 28 to 32 inches. Width of 20 to 24 inches. Can be used for beds and borders, cut flowers, or garden.

SU07180-10 5800x3300 pixels 1 frame 31 image focus stack blend A6000 60mm diffusion disk
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The next day Saturday, May 2, 2020, another two nicely shaped wet yellow, orange, and pink blooms with water droplets. For such subjects, I do not add shots to bring non-subject background elements also into sharp focus, especially if they are darker. I will add a shot or two at, say F18 focused on background leaves and stems that are close enough to a subject that would otherwise be too close to render well out of focus.

SU07211-25 3400x5900 pixels 1 frame 15 image focus stack blend A6000 60mm diffusion disk
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Here are two quite different-looking blooms on the same bush that is common with some of these hybrid varieties. Many blooms go through a sequence of color and form changes from bud opening through peak bloom.

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This is named Violet's Pride another Floribunda variety. There were many of these lavender to lilac-hued wet roses not yet fully expanded from buds that had interesting concentric shells of petals. Cultivars like this cannot produce rosehip seeds because the density of petals prevents bees reaching inner flower parts. I ate some of the petals imagining they tasted like sweet wine.
Per FOSJRG:
Hybridizer: Christian Bedard. Floribunda. Lavender, fuchsia to magenta center, lavender reverse. Strong, fruity, spicy fragrance. 35 petals. Average diameter: 3.75 feet. Full (26-40 petals), in large clusters bloom form. Medium, bushy, rounded. Large, glossy, dark green foliage. Height of 30 to 60 inches. Can be used in the garden. Disease susceptibility: disease-resistant.

SU07280-97 5000x3700 pixels 1 frame 18 image focus stack blend A6000 60mm diffusion disk
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There were many cultivars with striped marbled colors, usually against white or light pink. With this variety, the center flower is purple, with surrounding flowers pink rose. Here, the background out-of-focus areas were in the diffuse light of a cloudy morning. This was one of several subjects where I did not do an adequate job noting the rose sign to be able to later recall its name. Might be a Parade Day?

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Another striped marbled cultivar, Tropical Lightning, that was growing on a walk through door trellis. Per FOSJRG:
Bred by Pierre Orard. Climber, Shrub. Yellow, orange-red streaks, stripes, flecks, red flecks, ages to pink. Ages to pink, streaked red. None to no fragrance. 30 petals. Large, semi-double to double bloom form. Blooms in flushes throughout the season. Climbing. Height of 8 to 10 feet. Striking blooms cover this vigorous climber in generous clusters. Large, glossy foliage grows on the sturdy canes, creating an upright structure to show off the novel cream-striped, smoky orange blossoms. The unusual color makes this rose a show-stopping topic of conversation. Plant it near an arbor or trellis, and it is sure to spark the curiosity of passersby and rose enthusiasts alike. Although this plant is registered as a climber and will perform as such in the South, it will grow as a medium-sized shrub in the northern locations.

SU07323-53 3600x3900 pixels 1 frame 31 image focus stack blend A6000 60mm diffusion disk
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Beautiful cream-hued Iceberg roses with stronger saturation, slightly orange cream, at the center. Subjects like this with a dark background are more common in the early morning while the sun altitude is low, leaving bush areas below shadowed. Per FOSJRG:
Hybridizer: Tim Hermann Kordes. White, near white, or white blend Hybrid Tea. Plenty of long, cool-white buds open as large, double roses on this Floribunda. The light green glossy foliage makes a perfect backdrop for these clean white blooms. White or white blend. Mild fragrance. 35 to 40 petals. Average diameter: 3.75 feet. Large, full (26-40 petals), borne mostly solitary, cupped bloom form. Blooms in flushes throughout the season. Medium, long, pointed, ovoid buds. Bushy, upright. Glossy foliage.

SU07353-79 6000x4000 pixels 1 frame 27 image focus stack blend A6000 60mm diffusion disk
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This aesthetic rose, Cinco De Mayo, a Floribunda with orange hues, took a long time to set up. I kept trying to include the partially beautiful bloom in the upper right; however, the frame was unbalanced. Buds often nicely complement bloomed flowers, with their hairy sepals adding fine detail. The more striking feature here beyond colors is how the eye finds the system of curving petal shapes interesting. Per FOSJRG:
Hybridizer: Tom Carruth. Russet Floribunda. Russet. Flowers multi-color, smoky lavender-orange. None to mild; opinions vary on fragrance. Average diameter: 3.5 feet. Medium, double (17-25 petals), cluster-flowered, in large clusters bloom form. Blooms in flushes throughout the season. Medium, rounded. Medium, semi-glossy, dark green foliage. Height of 35 to 47 inches.

SU07354-63b 3700x3200 pixels 1 frame 10 image focus stack blend A6000 60mm extension tube diffusion disk
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This rose subject's coloration reminded me of a beautiful sunset sky. Rose petals often have outward rays of varying coloration. The primary image shows the full flower with a dark background. I cropped that in this, one of 3 versions, for the central flower. Another version that works well has the vortex more in the lower right quadrant.

This was a close subject using my 12mm extension tube behind the 60mm lens. Getting all elements in focus with such a close 3-dimensional subject requires more shots at more apertures, many shots of which are redundant and not actually utilized in processing. Worse is not taking enough shots, leaving even small areas with soft focus that becomes very noticeable when displayed or printed large. Thus wise to take excessive numbers of shots and cull them later. I delete some of the redundant shots by inspection of identical EXIF distance and position data or if I notice shots out of registration when cycling through shots with Zerene Stacker. My dumped EXIF data is organized in an Excel sheet with 30 columns, some of which are absolutely necessary for my complex method of post-processing.

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Back again on Wednesday, May 6, 2020, but looking like Christmas, the above shows an incredibly saturated red cultivar, Take It Easy. In fact, in Photoshop, the red levels showed it was clipped a bit. The even high saturation does reduce 3-dimensional visual cues. This is a good example of a subject with blooms and buds where it was also important to achieve good focus on leaves too. Santa likes what the snow on petals at center adds. Per FOSJRG:
Bred by Christian Bedard. Shrub. Dark red, light pink reverse. Mild, tea fragrance. 15 to 25 petals. Average diameter: 2.75 feet. Medium, cluster-flowered, cupped, high-centered to cupped bloom form. Blooms in flushes throughout the season. Glandular sepals, leafy sepals, pointed buds.

SU07545-57 4800x3700 pixels 1 frame 13 image focus stack blend A6000 60mm extension tube diffusion disk
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Below, plants in the garden had fallen petals, with more where blooms had run their cycle. Here, a multi-colored petal on the ground was full of sprinkler water droplets. Many more on the following page 3. Over 17 days, I drove to the rose park on 11 mornings, 2 of which I didn't take my camera out of the car and soon drove home after noticing breezes would be too strong. On another 3 breezy mornings, I just worked briefly without capturing anything worth processing. On other days, I would simply bring up weather websites like wunderground dot com or windy dot com and see it was certain to be too breezy.

NEXT: Page 3 SJM Rose Garden 2of2
2020 Trip Chronicles: Contents

David Senesac
email: info@davidsenesac.com

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