Practicing

I've never been very good at using the macro feature on my camera and thought it was time to get some practice in. Fortunately, my neighborhood, where I usually take my daily walks, has some great flowers on display since 1) many of my neighbors are much more dedicated gardeners than I am; and 2) we had enough rain this spring to give us a bumper crop of lovelies.

Like the althea bush that's by my back door. Since I hardly ever remember to water it, usually I'm lucky to see three or four blossoms all summer. But for now anyway, it's pretty much loaded with these handsome guys...

So, after two or three days of forgetting to take my camera on my walk, I finally remembered the other day and offer these results of my attempts at macro photography. Enjoy!

It is very tricky (at least it is for me) to get the focus right and there were quite a few efforts where the focal point was obviously not where I wanted it. Like this one:

Fortunately, these lovely flowers appear in several yards along my route, so I had other chances. Which, I think, came out better...

Unfortunately I don't know what these flowers are called, but I do know that after blooming they produce this less lovely seed pods...

Another mystery shrub that I see pretty often sports these purple beauties...

I feel like I should know what these are called, since I'm pretty sure my grandmother (who was quite a gardener) always had some. But for the life of me I can't call that name up from the vaults. However, I enjoy the yard near my house that has an extensive bed of the stuff...

However, I do know the names of the rest of my samples...

the super-showy Pride of Barbados

xeriscapers' favorite: lantana

a big display of plumbago

BTW, that's also plumbago in the background (nicely macro-ed, if I do say so) behind the bright red hibiscus at the top of the post.

Finally, another example of what happens after the blooms. Our mountain laurels bloom very early in spring, so by now their seed pods are well developed...

I'll continue to practice with my macro setting and hopefully will have some more snaps worthy of showing off as the summer progresses.