I’m learning that while I have a long way to go, I’ve advanced to the point that some of my photos look suspiciously like art. That’s exciting as well as a little frightening.

Mostly, I take photos of flowers; I take them close up, with particular concern for exposure settings, light, and depth of field.

But since getting Leica cameras, I can also do something else – capture the mood and feelings of flowers through abstractions, different lenses, and lots of practice. The flower photos are beautiful and detailed; I will keep doing them just as I have for the past year and a half. This camera is softer and picks up color beautifully. I can experiment.

And I will.

I said earlier in the year I want to get to another level with my photography; I think the flowers, Leica camera, and lenses will help me get there. It’s tough work, demanding, and requiring patience and farm, once again I will need to be a better human.

This is a big start. It also applies to portraits and street scenes, not just flowers.

As the flowers start blossoming, I’m adding something to my repertoire; some of you may have always seen the theme.

These “art” photos try to capture a mood and harness the power of flowers to touch, calm, inspire, or do what art should do and capture our attention for whatever reasons.

I’m starting with six photos on this post that fit that category.

I’ll label the regular flower pictures, which won’t change or diminish, as “flower photos” and the others as “art photos.”

As always, these photos are free and are not trademarked or copyrighted. They are one way of paying readers back for the support you have given me since 2007 I started the blog. Feel free to use the photos however you wish; you don’t need my permission. And thanks for following me and my work. It means a lot.

Feel free to paint them, use them as screen savers, or download and print them out. They are yours as well as mine.

Art photos are different; they try to capture more than the flower but generate a mood, feeling, or emotion. I hope people can come to see them as art.

I’m learning that flowers can be very emotional and even enchanting.

I didn’t know that until I started taking flower photos. There is a deep spiritual element to them. This photo was tricky, getting the camera to focus on the Columbine in front with the White Columbine in a moving wind behind it.

I’m not going to identify flowers by name in the flower art posts, I’d like the emphasis to be on mood, and  I see this as a spiritual experience. I hope it has meaning for you. The rest of the flower photos will come every day, usually twice. Most of the flower photos will be Iphone Pro Max 13 pictures; the others will be from my Leica SLR-S. Thanks again.