Currently in Lugano there is an open air sculpture exhibition, showing works by Arnaldo Pomodoro. The works are highly reflective and have many interesting shapes. I thought it would be interesting to play around with them a bit at lunchtime. I wasn't the only one...

Hmm. For the last couple of weeks, the weeks have seen wonderful weather (in both "normal" and "photographic" terms), and the weekends have had dull skies. A bit of a shame because it is magnolia season here and whilst I'm not usually much of a flora photographer, I like magnolias. There are white ones, red, purple, mauve, often in photogenic settings. Great for shallow depth of field work. So whatever the weather, I had to do something! Last year I got some shots with my Canon 135 F2.0 lens which I was pleased with. This lens is really nice, an all time favorite of mine. Weighs a ton, but the "bokeh" is really smooth. I wanted to see how the two Olympus lenses would compare. Obviously, being zooms, they're not quite the same thing. But they're not bad. I'll post some comparative shots next, but my feeling at the moment is that the 50-200 is a bit smoother. In the meantime, I HAD to post this. This is nothing like anything I've done before, and I doubt I would have tried it without a DSLR. This is the second version, using spot metering off the magnolia leaves. I really like the high-key effect combined with the shallow DOF Looks a lot better on an A3 print, mind you!