Tulips

The weather here during the Spring has been wet and cold. In fact, temperatures were as warm in February and March than in May. I know many of you were in the midst of a heat wave over the past two weeks, but when the northerly winds, our natural air conditioner, are dominent, we have no worries of a heat wave. In some ways it is good to get a lot of rain because we didn't get much snow during the winter. That meant there wasn't a lot of run-off when the little we did have finally melted. Last year it was so dry that there were water bans in many towns. At least the water levels have been rising because of all the rain and we may not have that problem again this year.

The tulips in my yard, which are blooming two weeks later than last year, add beautiful colours to my yard. Since moving to our house in 2007, I have planted more tulip bulbs each fall and we enjoy the early blooms each spring. Of course, I photograph them every year and no two images are the same. These photos were made with my 75-300 mm zoom lens around 7:45 PM when the sun was low in the sky. The bright colours really contrasted with the darker colours of the earth and greenery in the background.

These images illustrate that you don't have to travel far to find interesting photographic subjects. Thanks for the positive comments on the Rocky Mountain series I have been sharng over the past few days. I will return to that theme from time to time.