I found a new way of appreciating the beauty of the varied wildflowers in the backyard garden in a different way — using a “drag” technique to blur the image and create impressionist-like blotches and streaks of color.
The original: purple coneflowers, gray-headed (yellow coneflowers), obedient plant, scarlet beebalm, red cardinal flower, oxeye and cup plant flowers highlight a scene in the garden. (I need a wall-size poster of this to look at this winter.)
Using a slow shutter speed (<1/10 sec) and panning the camera in an up-down motion while the shutter is open creates an impressionist blur of color.
I edited (cloned out) the offending pole in the background and softened the edges of the streaks of color (using Blur) in Photoshop.
And then I discovered some artistic tools I had never used or known about in Photoshop and tried them as well. From biology to art — it’s so easy! You can mimic the dry brush, spatter, sponge, daub and many other artistic techniques, or you can create abstract whorls of color for a more surrealist look.
This is the “ocean ripple” effect from the selection of Artistic tools in Photoshop.
This is too extreme for my taste, but it’s fun to play around with the tools in Photoshop, and realize what you can do with it.
You can read more about how to set up the camera for a “drag” shot here. And see other examples of bloggers who have used this technique here.
Back Yard Biology 
Your picture worked well. Thanks for the link.
Thanks — had a good model 🙂
Ah, the joys of playing around with photos. It looks like you had a lot of fun doing so (and I like the results–especially the edited version of the panned image).
beautiful
I loved that last one even though it’s extreme. How fun! I’m going to start calling you Matisse.
Thanks, I would love that — I think the last photo is channeling Salvador Dali, so not impressionist at all!