My Buddy

Spring has finally reached Scotland.

All the buds on this horse chestnut tree, Aesculus hippocastanum, were coming out together today.




This evening, I have done something counter-intuitive with this image.
Club judges tell us that we should use long lenses and wide apertures to throw the background out of focus and isolate the subject - and I did just that. However, the bursting buds then looked rather lonely so I recombined a woodland background from an image taken about 20 mins later. The result is a combination of the blur (bokeh if you wish) and the clear woodland.  I'm happy with it - I hope you are too.