Close-Ups

I like playing with my camera, and when I have a little extra time I like to do close-ups. When I view the pictures on the computer I often see things I never would have otherwise noticed. Sometimes it makes me think about The Incredible Shrinking Man and how his viewpoint literally changed from day to day.

Here is a beautiful violet-blue bearded iris. Up close you can see the subtle shade differences and the little hairs of the beard.

This is a flower cluster from a Lantana. What's interesting about this plant are the wide range of colors on one cluster, let alone the entire plant. This one is more yellow to orange, whereas some of the others are pink to red, or even in the violet shades.

This is our first ripe strawberry of the year. Isn't it beautiful?

Can you figure out what this is? This is a picture I took last year of a sunflower. I like how you can see a subtle pattern. In a college speech class I did a talk on patterns in nature. My visual aid was a pinecone. If you look at a pinecone from the top down you can see how it swirls around. There were only about 20 students but I don't do well talking in front of a bunch of people. I got a "C" in that class.

This is the inside of a white California type poppy.

And this is the inner sanctum of a rose.

And this means I need to get the aphid control going!