Drizzle, Drizzle, Toil and Trouble

This morning, I wanted to continue on yesterday's theme of buds and new growth. The skies, unfortunately, had other plans. A few raindrops began to hit my windshield as I drove to Carkeek Park this morning. As I walked and photograph, the drizzle steadily increased to a light/moderate rain (which became snow on higher terrain, I found out later). Anyway, I stayed until there was enough water coming down from the sky and the trees to preclude productive photography.

Below is a budding flower I found along the Piper's Creek trail. I don't even know what it is or whether its native; I've never seen it before. But there it was! They're very tiny, and sometimes I have trouble with tiny subject matter, because the forest floor can make for kind of an ugly background. In this case, however, the dead leaves etc. were colorful enough that I think they actually add to the image. I used f/4 to blur the background as much as I could; I didn't need any distracting shapes.

The next image is one that I took as it really started to rain. These are new red elderberry leaves, and the image isn't as sharp as I would have liked, because raindrops kept hitting the leaves and jiggling them around. It's close - quite close - but not up to my usual standards. Still, I like how the composition turned out, and I like the grayish color that suffuses the background. It suggests a rainy day. I used f/6.3 to boost my detail in the in-focus leaf.

The next two are images of elderberry leaves, again. I used f/3.2 and f/4, respectively, to maximize selective focus. The converging lines in the first one were striking to me and inspired me to take that particular photograph.