It occurred to me today that as our pink cherry plum is now flowering, the white variety that grows wild in the hedgerows around the village must be too, so I took the macro lens and went to look. I was, sadly, a little late: the recent storms have ravaged the blossom, and even as I was searching the trees for undamaged flowers (precariously balanced on the top of a steep bank, with cars whizzing past just behind me), petals were swirling around me like confetti with each gust of wind.
In the end I retreated to the safety of the garden and photographed our own cherry plum again. This is the same tree – and in fact, the same branch – as in Saturday’s post, but shot with a background of choisya foliage instead of the neighbours’ fence. Using the macro allowed me to get in much closer, and has produced a different kind of image. In fact I was almost too close: because of the wind I was holding the branch still with my left hand while operating the camera with my right, but in order to compose the shot with some negative space around the blossom I had to stretch out as far as possible with my left arm, and lean quite a long way backwards with the camera. It must have looked rather odd, but I think I’m allowed to behave oddly on my own property. I certainly do while I’m out and about.
After all this excitement I brought myself back down to earth with some gardening (eeurgh) – taking care, of course, to leave all my rubbish lying in the middle of the lawn as evidence for R (who was out enjoying himself at the time) that I’d been slaving over a hot pair of loppers all afternoon, and not doing photography. This evening I’ve been in Pershore practising Brahms, and loving it.
