May Flowers?

oh gosh. another late, late, super late post. These were taken back in early May! It was a lovely spring day... dma and I began by checking out the spring blooms at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens then a hop skip & a jump over the lake to Maguson Park followed by a spin through the always beautiful UW campus.

the botan

This first frame is breaking the rules. It is not centered. I did not obey the rule of thirds. I think I just made up the rule of 1/5ths? Who cares. I like the tones of the petals and tiny, delicate buds.

For this pic, I didn't do much editing: just cropped & bumped up the highlights a bit. I love the colors. They aren't tones that I would normally be drawn to; I am not a big orange fan. But I love the crisp feeling of the orange, blue & green.

Look what I spotted in the flowers... a bee! (hey, this reminds me... this *might* be the trip to the Botan where we coined the phrase "i love flowahz". I dooooo).

There was a plant sale in progress, so there were a bunch of wagons available for customers. I wish I had more time to do some close-up work on these!

Magnuson

We strolled through Magnuson, but this trip was pretty much snoozeville. The ONLY pic of mine that I liked is this one; always love backlight leaves!

UW Campus

Sometimes, I amazed at how a few city blocks can make such an impression in your life. I walked the halls and brick lined paths of the UW campus for four years and still feel at home here. This first pic is of the main entrance to Suzzallo Library. For many, this building is the corner stone of Red Square & bridges the quad and Rainier Vista. But, as usual, my perspective is a bit different; I worked in the cashier's office for over three years. It was the perfect job for me at the time, and formed some of the principles and professional standards that I still embrace today.

And here is one of my favorite buildings on campus: Denny Hall. I took this one using my in-camera black & white setting, then cropped in a bit in photoshop. (white sky. sigh.)

We were just in a wandering mood... strolled down Rainier Vista, stopped by the rose garden, spent some time trying to get unique frames of the famous Columns (fyi: I was NOT successful...) and ended up in the botanical garden. I was in heaven.

I fell in love with the blanketflower & actually plopped down in the center of the garden to get as close as I could to the flowers. By this time, the light was fading fast, so I had to balance the ISO to not get too much noise, and the shutter speed to be able to capture enough light. I perched my elbows on my knees to be a human tripod and held very, very still. Aren't they beautiful & cheery??

So, steadily but surely I will catch up to my old posts! I will ;)

Thanks for checking these out & hope you have a wonderful, beautiful day!