Flowers at the U.S. National Arboretum in April Part 1

I wanted to see the tulips at Sherwood Gardens in Baltimore, but the trip was just a little too far away and I couldn't find any nearby restrooms, so we settled on the U.S. National Arboretum instead, since it was a shorter trip.  

Does anyone know of any tulip fields in St. Mary's County?  They had a few tulips at the Arboretum,  but not 6 acres worth and most of them were behind a fence.  

They did have quite a variety of beautiful flowers blooming, so I was satisfied.  In the past, we usually visited in May to see the azaleas.  Most of the azaleas weren't blooming yet and that was fine.

I will probably turn this into several posts, because there were too many pretty ones.

We smelled and saw some lovely wisteria too.  The carpenter bees were certainly enjoying it.

Tulips

Wisteria

Spring is All Around

I was stuck after a doctor checkup at the Calvert Hospital parking lot for an hour last week.  What is a photographer to do?  It was Spring and I only had a cell phone.  It kept me busy, walking and out of trouble.  LOL.  Here are the results, edited in Snapseed, a phone app.  I wish my phone had a closeup lens or telephoto.

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Spring flowers at Longwood

We saw some lovely flowers 2 weeks ago.  I loved the little curves of the tops of the foxglove.

      Foxglove

      Foxglove closeup

    Backlit Tulips were pretty.

     I liked the textures in this Tulip photo

     Warm color flowers orange and red

      This White tulip was a work of art!

      Pink Daffodil

     Arch

     White on white daffodil

     I have never seen a hanging Rose-Grape.  Interesting!

     Evening light

     

Photographing Spring flowers

I've spent some time recently photographing spring flowers using a micro (macro) 60 mm Nikon lens and 2 small flashes on a ring around the lens (a special Nikon flash system).  The azaleas, dogwoods and tulips were in bloom.  A tip for photographing flowers is that uneven numbers of blooms look particularly nice.  I often like dark or blurred backgrounds and the flower's center and foreground should be in focus.  Azaleas were difficult because they tend to bloom in pairs not triplets.  Red flowers tend to get overexposed with a digital camera, so I underexpose them a little in RAW format and check them on my camera viewing screen often.  I particularly like backlit flowers and flower shots taken from unusual angles, like underneath.  To learn a little more about flower photography, check out this article by the New York Institute of Photography.