I Aster A Question

Hardy har har!

The aster were blooming the other morning at Magnuson Park, so I naturally couldn't resist taking some pictures of them. Following are my two best. In retrospect, I should have tried getting closer up to them. Nevertheless, I think the compositions ended up decent. I'm always torn between the knowledge that, in flower photography, closer is more often than not better, and a desire to keep my flower subjects "in context." That is, I want to put enough distance between my camera and the flower that you can still tell what it is and sort of see it as it appears in its environment...

...at least, sort of. Artistic nature photography of necessity involves stylistic distortion of one's subjects, but I think this should be done within reason. Some flower shots I've seen are so close that they become almost color abstracts; you can't really tell what the picture is "of." I appreciate the skill that goes into these sorts of photographs, for sure, but I don't find them very appealing or enlightening.

I had a second shot at framing the sunrise against queen anne's lace, and I think I got one that is compositionally as good as, if not superior to, the ones I took last time. Following the dictum I explained earlier, I got closer to the flower, and guess what, it worked!

Finally, I took a picture of some queen anne's lace in the Promontory Point area of Magnuson Park, an oft-neglected area in the south of the park. They've been trying to restore native plant and bird habitats there, and there were certainly lots of birds scurrying around! Unfortunately, large areas are still overrun with introduced plants like blackberries - and, of course, queen anne's lace.

In the background, you can see that a few of the tree leaves (cottonwoods, in this case) are beginning to turn yellow. Noooooooo!

Also note how bright the whites are on the flower. That picture was taken at about 8:15 am, and already the contrast in the sunlight was getting tricky. Early morning photography is the best, but you have to work quickly!