While bouquets of fresh, new flowers are wonderful, I also get great pleasure out of seeing them slowly change as they age. From tight buds to down-turned, open blossoms to, in the end, petals falling on the table—all stages of a bouquet, especially this time of the year, have their own beauty.
This bouquet of tulips we’ve enjoyed is now on its way to the compost pile and the several hundred photographs I made of them over the course of the week have been culled to fewer than thirty. I’ll live with those for a bit and then probably delete half or more.
I was amazed at how challenging it was to get satisfying photographs the particular variety of multi-colored parrot tulips—my roving eye enjoys the combination of colors but in most cases the camera sensor does not!
A gorgeous surprise were the stunning white blooms with their base of delicate yellows and greens.
What a delight also to see the whole bouquet in different kinds of light—infinite combinations of reflection and translucence—so magical.
These are the last of the photographs that I saw this week.
Still Learning To See 
I’ve done the same…..taking lots of pictures that just don’t capture the real thing somehow. I thought it was just me or my camera or the light. The sometimes subtle, sometimes exacting change of color in the tulips is indescribable but your camera work catches the reality.
Thanks. “Seeing” is one thing but, as you say, getting it to come out of the camera the same way is a different thing! I can remember occasionally shooting 10 rolls of 36 exposures easy in the old film days—it was expensive! Now 360 digital exposures make it easy to try things and see what works. I appreciate your continued interest in and support of my work.