Flowering Pear

I used to think these flowers were from the Dogwood tree, but I’m pretty sure they are actually found on Bradford Pears. I think. Like I’ve said many times on here I’m no botanist or arborist or any kind of -ist, really, but I do like going out and taking pictures (photographist?) of the world around me and that’s really all I did here. This is almost an example of the kind of picture you can get right in your very own back yard, but to apply that common description would be a bit misleading here: this is not, in fact, my own back yard. However, the tree does belong to my neighbor and this branch was hanging over the fence into my yard so I guess it’s really an issue of semantics. In any case, this flower was practically begging to be photographed when I saw it on a bright sunny Saturday afternoon in mid-March and I was glad to oblige.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy photography is simply doing it with another person, and that’s exactly how this image came about. I often find that when I’m walking around taking pictures with someone else I’m able to see things, even familiar everyday objects and scenes, with a fresh, new perspective that brings out a lot of picture-taking opportunities I don’t usually see. I shot this while hanging out in the yard with my brother, his wife, and their kids who came down for a visit over Spring Break while my brother and I were just kind of walking around, our cameras at the ready, catching up on life and looking for some fun photo opportunities. He saw a branch full of flowers bending lazily over the fence, brought his camera and macro lens up to his eye, and started taking some pictures. I felt almost a bit silly right there in the moment: for all my talk about looking for photo opportunities in everyday life, here was a great one that I see literally every single day but didn’t even think about until my brother showed up and put a new perspective on the ordinary.

I quickly followed his lead and started taking some shots of my own, not really expecting much or thinking they would turn into anything particularly special, but when I loaded my RAW files into Lightroom I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw. The rich purples on the petals, the bright blue sky, and the tree branch bisecting the frame and adding a bit of energy to the image, all came together to form a macro shot that I like a lot. It was a really fun reminder about one of those fundamental aspects of photography that I need to remember more often.