April Flowers

These morning photos show flowers both close up, still, and moving.  Basically, if there was no wind, I set up for clarity; when the wind returned, I experimented.

Late April flowers in Vancouver

April 24th is very cool, grey, misty with occasional light west-coast rain, and on the dark side.  A perfect time to shoot flowers in our garden.  After my operation, I am not allowed to lift more than 5 pounds, so I used one lens and no tripod.

Maree's April tulips

It is obviously time for another post showing Maree's fantastic flowers.  This week seems to be the peak for Vancouver's tulip season.  When the sunshine shines through these delicate petals, each becomes a jewel as the flowers all lean towards the sun's warm light.

And just a few photos of her beautiful rhododendron. 

Flowers in Vancouver in early May

People cannot recall such a cool spring in Vancouver as the one we are enjoying. (I say "enjoying" more as someone who adores flowers than as a golfer.) The tulips, which I expected to be shredded from their stems by the recent rains, are still glorious. Both the cultivated and the native bleeding hearts are just coming into bloom, the periwinkle is reminding me why it is a favourite west coast ground cover, and Vancouverites will be enjoying spectacular displays of rhododendrons for at least three more weeks. Slugs, on the other hand, will enjoy cherry blossoms for another 10 days and then feast on our new lettuce, beans and peas for months to come.

These pictures were taken on a misty Saturday morning, under dark skies. Unpredictable breezes forced me to push shutter speeds up to 1/640th of a second (ISO 200). I tried to find exposures which would emphasize the hues of the damp greenery so it could serve as blurry background for the more forward spring colours.

Mennonite home in Burnaby

Last evening we were invited to Eric and Erika's lovely home for dinner, an opportunity to celebrate our lives (hopefully) returning to normal after this year's hectic concert season. Erika is a full-time nurse with an all-consuming hobby that is becoming a business. Nothing seems to excite her quite as much as the challenge of imagining how someone's room could be redesigned in one day on a very limited budget. Although decorating magazines emphasize what can be accomplished with limitless resources, that is hardly the world in which I live. We therefore enjoy visiting their home for the fantastic food and conversation, and we never fail to admire how Erika keeps her decorating skills honed by continually transforming their home, adding collectibles, rearranging furniture, combining objects which did not originally share a common purpose. I particularly liked this month's transformation of the quiet corner in her living room, lit only by the soft light of an overcast sky. Old exterior windows with peeling paint suddenly seemed appropriate in the newly painted room. (You can see how this corner looked before it was recently redesigned for Saturday, but [Monday] I just learned this morning that she found it much too busy and simplified it Sunday. Since I never ever rearrange furniture, this attention to design absolutely amazes me.)

Their front yard is now completely devoted to a relatively new flower garden. The April tulips and spurge were at their prime.