Anyone who loves photographing flowers will know the feeling: when a burgeoning Spring releases a cornucopia of blooms in every colour that the past winter of relative inactivity is brought greedily to an end with an irrepressible flurry of snapping…
The urgency of this need, for me at least, is so strong that it goes well beyond the ‘normal’ approach to flower photography. Of course, the standard portraits are not ignored….
… but the visceral impact of the massed ranks simply cannot be ignored…
Equally, to revert from the big picture to the minutiae of Nature reveals the ‘Art in the Detail’, all too easily overlooked and unheralded….
… while interesting lighting and a focus on parts other than the flowers can bring other artistic rewards:
Given the cold northerly wind on the day of our visit, insect life was not as abundant, or obvious, as we had hoped. But in the woodland garden, the tree trunks served as something of the wind-screen and the absence of expanded leaves allowed sunlight through, enough to encourage the basking and feeding of some bugs and beasties:
And we were very pleased to see our first Dark-edged Bee-fly and Box Bug of the year:
Last of all, a question: coincidence or design? Is this Cicadellid really actively seeking to pretend it is a leaf serration?