Honouring the Blossoms*

May 22, 2023

For those who have been reading my essays over the years, you will realise that I should be publishing my Spring colour images for 2023 pretty soon. Well, this year, ‘pretty soon’ means now. I think the very early summer heat and the fact that we’ve had two previous drought years, has caused the trees and bushes to be somewhat stressed. Mother Nature’s natural response is to produce more offspring, thus more flowers.

A good example is this years image of our Nanking Cherry bush. Last year, the branches had sparsely distributed flowers in the Spring whereas this year the branches are loaded with blooms. Last year I was able to create a minimalist display of a few blossoms on this bush, but that required a macro lens moved in tight to the branch plus some other depth of field tricks. This year I’m using the same lens, but much further away and without any special technology. Hopefully I've captured the equivalence of a bouquet of Nanking Cherry blossoms.

Here is my selection of images for the Spring of 2023. They are made in our yard or in a

park, just down the street. Thank goodness we have this beauty of nature to help offset the smoke from the forest fires in the northern part of Alberta. I’m saddened to hear of the terrible tales of loss to our fellow Canadians living in the fire stricken areas.