Flower Power

One of the cardinal rules of taking photos of flowers is NEVER shoot them in direct sunlight. You ALWAYS want to shoot in the shade where the light is more even. But my photo philosophy is that rules are meant to be broken. Sometimes shooting in direct sun light helps to bring out the color and majesty of the flower, if you shoot it at the right angle, where the sun is not too overpowering and washes out the image. Most of these images were shot today or this past week in direct sunlight. These are only a few of the several hundred photos of flowers I shot this past week. The colors right now are simply amazing. God knows how to brighten up out drab world. That is real flower power from above!

Poppies and Peonies

There is something therapeutic about taking photos of flowers. This weekend was busy with having a church picnic and worship service at Becker Park in Barron and then coming home, loading the van and setting up for VBS in Shell Lake. Today we had our first day of VBS for the summer, which was a real blessing. BUT I was tired and stressed, so I took part of the afternoon and snapped a few shots of flowers. Peonies and Poppies were the flowers of the day.  I was really taken back by these bright red and black poppies (at least I think they are poppies).

One of the ladies at church told us about Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, MN. This past Friday, Linda and I decided to find this place and explore all the variety of flowers it had to offer. The tulips had already died off, but there was plenty of other varieties in this 3 mile trek of plants. Linda was amazed at all the different colored peonies and I was blown away at the variety of Irises. If you haven't seen this place you need to take a day (a whole day) and visit and be amazed by God's wonderful flowers, trees and scrubs. Here is the link.  http://www.arboretum.umn.edu/  Here is just a teaser of what we saw!