Top Ten of 2016 – Part 1

This begins the second year of my blog. I’m starting the year the same way I did last year with with my Top Ten of the previous year. I learned this technique from one of my mentors, Martin Bailey. You can click on the link if you would like to try his process. I find it very helpful. Although I don’t have as many photos to choose from as Martin, I have a lot more this year than last and I expect it will continue to be harder each year. It makes me appreciate what I have accomplished in the past year. There is no particular order to my Top Ten. It would be too hard to pick number 1 or 10.

These photos were all taken with my Lensbaby Velvet 56. The first one was taken on 11-11-16. These were a pair of thistles that I found near a pond. I like the way the crisp flower in the front compares to the soft flower in the background. The white fuzz highlights the structure of the hard cases.

The next 2 photos were taken a few days later in a large area of Japanese Maples that still had brilliant color in mid-November. The leaf below looks to me like a flame sitting on the tree branch. You can see the hint of the colors in the area in the background.

The last photo is an abstract close-up of tree bark that has similar colors to the photo above. Although it’s not a maple the bark colors harmonize with it.