Zinnias

I can remember my grandmother planting zinnias in her vegetable garden – to give the mostly green vegetation some extra color. They work well for me in pots on my deck now. I enjoy photographing the flowers…and have picked some of my favorites from recent weeks. I’ve been experimenting with using the zoom on the camera rather than getting close. It makes a nicely blurred background (green from trees) and sometimes there is a surprise insect (an early instar of something that is almost clear on the underside of the rightmost petal). At the highest magnification - past what the lenses of the camera support and essentially cropping in the camera - the image has a painterly soft-focus.

Sometimes the background is black because of the way the light is – or isn’t.

I try to get above the flower so that inside shows.

The one with multiple rows of petals also has a spider web! All of the flowers that have petals attract butterflies. Tiger swallowtails are the most frequent visitors.

Once the petals begin to fall off, the seeds are beginning to form and that means that the goldfinches will visit more frequently.

I let them eat their fill. There are always enough left in the seed heads to crumble into the pots for another round of zinnias next summer.