Spring at Saint Edward

Last week, I made a quick weekday jaunt to Saint Edward State Park during my off hours. Rain fell during most of my visit, but I managed to walk away with a couple satisfactory compositions, all attempts of the Puget Sound Convergence Zone to soak my gear notwithstanding.

First, a salmonberry flower (Rubus spectabilis), with the trunks of bigleaf male and other trees in the background. The bigleaf maple trees were in the process of blooming and leafing out; the pale yellowish-green of their flowers and new leaves contrasted nicely with the lush green of the salmonberry leaves in the foreground. I've tried compositions along these lines in prior years, and this is my best to date. The noise is a bit high, but I think at standard print sizes (say, 8x12), this would look fine. F/10.

Next, a closeup of an inflorescence on a bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum). I consider myself fortunate that I found one that I was able to photograph - these flower clusters are frequently too high to photograph well (even for me!). Still working on perfecting the lighting and contrast, but this one's getting there. F/5.6.