First Weekend of Spring, pt2

The weather was perfect this afternoon for photography in wooded areas this time of year - overcast but bright, with intermittent filtered sunshine. But disaster struck once I found myself well within Boeing Creek Park: I had forgotten to bring the new waist pack in which I keep my filters! Thankfully, I just keep my macro lens's polarizing filter on the lens itself (I use it so much that I just leave it on, and really only take it off for cleaning). So it was a close-up day for me.

So here's an interesting plant - and I finally figured out what it is! It is usually referred to as red deadnettle or purple deadnettle (Lamium purpureum), and I think this ended up being my best-yet picture of it. It was somewhat in the shade of a larger plant, which combined with the filtered sunshine to lend it the diffused lighting you see here.

I also got a couple of sweet shots of a budding red-flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum) shrub. I was able to get a pretty narrow depth of field, and thus smooth background, at an aperture of f/8!

And, lastly, some pics of salmonberry () flowers. Most of these shrubs are not blooming yet, but a few of the ones in really sunny places of Boeing Creek Park were blooming pretty impressively. As you will see, these ones were more challenging in terms of getting a smooth background (I didn't want to lose too much depth of field on the flower itself; at widest apertures I lost some of the center of the flower). The first one is the best; the next two weren't as good but were still good enough to post.