Tulips... a little later than anticipated :)

This April I had taken a trip down to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm and it turned out to be one of the few beautiful spring days with almost no rain :)

The morning started just around 9am before the loads of people arrived. Only the those looking for the perfect picture were out there at this time in the morning. Moving from flower to flower, row to row, color to color, there were so many in bloom the choices were limitless!

After about 3 hours of shooting my family joined me and we spent the rest of the afternoon taking a few more pictures and checking out the other activities like bouncy houses, rock climbing, slides and of course an elephant ear to refuel!

In May the Portland Metropolitan Photographer's Association had their quarterly print competition. Since I really had not done much in the way of flower macro photography I entered 3 images to see what I could learn...

This one "Three of a Kind" did ok it scored a 79. Almost but not quite a merit print as the name implied all 3 flowers were the same, though the middle one is just a soft focus. A better name, maybe a better score ;)

These 2 did score an 80 earning a merit and tied for 3 place "Morning Dew" and "Peach Pit Tulip" During the process of putting the images together and entering them in competition, I learned quite a bit about presentation, impact and titles... just to name a few. There are some many things to consider when entering but I look forward to the next one! Always an excellent opporturnity to grow and learn!