Spring Beauties

Spring Beauties

A well-known spring favourite in Ontario’s woods.

This flower should be blooming in a couple of weeks. It has to wait its turn. Skunk cabbage first, then coltsfoot, then bloodroot, then hepatica, then trout lilies, then spring beauties, next the cherry blossoms at High Park.

This image shows what I call the ‘dress-up technique.’ In reality I would never attempt to actually create such a composition. They need to be found as they are or they look unnatural. The thing to take away from this is: look at nature through the lens, and once in a decade you’ll run into something like this. All you need to do is recognize its potential and don’t mess with it. Photoshop had nothing to do with this image.

Ingredients: simplicity, good direction for the eye. The flower is close to the right upper strong point. Close but not quite. As a result this composition has some tension. Relax: there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of tension.

Settings unrecorded.