I played around with different depths of field on this shot, but it turns out that I liked the blurry one the best (the one in which all of the top part of the flower in focus was just too pointy). I really like the colors here: the contrasting purple with the greens works really well. I wish a *bit* more was in focus, but it still came out ok. Thoughts? Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/5, 1/160 sec, ISO 400

I got really lucky on the morning that I shot this: I had stayed up fairly late editing some photos/watching TV and decided to sleep in. When I woke up I remembered I had wanted to take pictures of the spring flowers that were blossoming all over town. By the time I got out of bed it was just past 10am! I looked out the window, thinking that the light would be horrible, to find that it was still cloudy! Perfect light. Just as I walked outside it started raining again, but stopped a minute later. The flowers were going to have water droplets for me to photograph! I found this rose while walking around near a park next to my apartment. I thought it had a gorgeous shape and there was nothing distracting behind it. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/4.5, 1/160 sec, ISO 640

I got really lucky on the morning that I shot this: I had stayed up fairly late editing some photos/watching TV and decided to sleep in. When I woke up I remembered I had wanted to take pictures of the spring flowers that were blossoming all over town. By the time I got out of bed it was just past 10am! I looked out the window, thinking that the light would be horrible, to find that it was still cloudy! Perfect light. Just as I walked outside it started raining again, but stopped a minute later. The flowers were going to have water droplets for me to photograph! I found this rose while walking around near a park next to my apartment. I thought it had a gorgeous shape and there was nothing distracting behind it. When I went through my photos I found that I really liked 2 shots of this flower and I couldn't decide which to keep (so I kept both!). I like this one because there's a little bug on the flower, but I like the other one because there's more green and it's a little bit further back and at less of an angle. Which do you like? Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/3.5, 1/800 sec, ISO 640

This rose was sitting with a bunch of other flowers in front of someone's fence near my apartment. I spent a long time trying to find an angle that removed much of the clutter from the photo but sadly there was just too much "stuff" in the way. I had to heavily edit this in Photoshop to remove the background distractions, but the rose itself is still absolutely gorgeous. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/5, 1/500 sec, ISO 640

While walking around outside I came upon these neat plants. I'm not sure what they are but they reminded me of artichokes. I really wanted to capture their circular shape but not in the typical manner. I tried to get their outer ring of leaves to draw the eye out and around from the bottom right of the photo. It was pretty hard because the center of the plant starting messing things up and going in the other direction (duh!). Anyways, I think this came out OK. I'm thinking maybe I'll pull this into photoshop and add something neat to the background -- I'm just not sure what I'd like to add. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/2.8, 1/640 sec, ISO 640

While walking around outside I came upon these neat plants. I'm not sure what they are but they reminded me of artichokes. I really wanted to capture their circular shape -- not sure how this turned out, but I thought that plant was neat. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/5, 1/640 sec, ISO 640

I really liked the radial shape of this flower. The neat little purple'ish red streaks made it seem like the nectar was blasted out of the flower and stained the pretty white pedals. This plant was too pretty to pass up! Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/5, 1/640 sec, ISO 640

As I was walking around peoples houses I noticed this gorgeous purple flower in someone's yard. I didn't want to walk on their lawn so I had to take this from a weird angle, but I think it actually turned out OK. I like how it almost looks like this flower is peering down at us, staring at you, trying to ask "HEY YOU. WACHOO LOOKIN' BUSTAH?!" Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/3.5, 1/1000 sec, ISO 640

At one point on my walk I came across a small patch of these little pink, white, and purple flowers. They made a little "field of flowers" and there was a little hill in that small field (I say "field" because it was maybe 6ft x 3 ft wide). I got down low and took it from an angle to make it seem like there were hundreds and hundreds and a never ending landscape of these flowers. I think I blurred the background too much, and I think it's a little busy, but the photo came out OK. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/8, 1/200 sec, ISO 640

Closeup of one of the small flowers in my "field of endless flowers." I liked the repeated circular shape of these and their subtle pink/purple colors. I wish it had come out a bit crisper in the center, but oh well. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/4.5 1/320 sec, ISO 640

At one point on my walk I came across a small patch of these little pink, white, and purple flowers. They made a little "field of flowers" and there was a little hill in that small field (I say "field" because it was maybe 6ft x 3 ft wide). I got down low and took it from an angle to make it seem like there were hundreds and hundreds and a never ending landscape of these flowers. I think I blurred the background too much, and I think it's a little busy, but the photo came out OK. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/8, 1/200 sec, ISO 640

This is one mean flower monster. I saw this guy and all I could think was "man, I would not wanna get in a fight with him!" Look at those teeth he has, and those big scary black eyes with rain paint around em. The only funny thing about him was his weird shaped nose. Don't you see a face in this guy? I thought it was too good to pass up! I wanted to make sure I got the entire flower in focus so I shot this at f/9. I had to blur the background a bit in Photoshop to get it to work better. I missed a spot on the left side and it ended up too blurry (oops!). I also couldn't figure out how to tone down the yellow so that it showed more details. I dropped the saturation a bit, but any more and the yellow just looked too weird. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/9 1/250 sec, ISO 640

There's one house on University Ave in Menlo Park that just has a GORGEOUS garden -- filled with tons of roses. All the flowers were blooming so I had to take some pictures. I loved the pink/orange/yellow colors in these flowers but I couldn't get an angle that isolated just one flower. I thought it would be nat to take all 4 but I couldn't get a decent background or get the dying flowers below it out of the shot. I debated doing a *lot* of Photoshop'ing to this but decided against it. The shot is too busy but I thought the flowers had awesome colors so I decided to post it anyways. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/7.1, 1/640 sec, ISO 640

There's one house on University Ave in Menlo Park that just has a GORGEOUS garden -- filled with tons of roses. All the flowers were blooming so I had to take some pictures. I loved the pink/orange/yellow colors in these flowers and after searching for a long time I finally found one flower that I could isolate and get a photo of. I wish I hadn't cropped off the bottom of the yellow leaves on this flower because that wold just make it not seem so awkward. The color in this flower was awesome and I liked the little rain drops left on it. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec, ISO 640