Flowers by the lake

Well, what a day! I received an email a few weeks ago to say that I had been selected by a Nikon magazine to be an apprentice in landscape photography for a monthly feature.
I was therefore sitting in the car park at Wisley at 7 a.m. waiting for the editor and Philip Smith, who is a renowned plant and garden photographer with a little trepidation and a great deal of excitement.
Plant photography is not,necessarily, my main interest but I learned so much during this session. I managed to get the 4/5 suitable photos for the magazine to use, so that was a plus. Wisley is also amazing. I had visited it many years ago but I had forgotten just how amazing it is.
Although I don't think my photography skills let me down, my lack of knowledge about plants certainly did. I now wish I had listened more to my husband when he goes on about the plants using their Latin names. At one point I pointed at a red flower and said that I would like to photograph the poppy. Mr. Smith looked at me with incredulity and pointed out that it was a cosmos. He then started pointing at the bed and say "photograph the blue flower." He gave up on me very easily. He also kept asking me "if my knees were OK for kneeling." Not quite the image I wanted to portray.
Sadly, the.image above was not one of the selected photographs. The editor went off with my memory card to ensure all the photos could be safely extracted. This was therefore taken with the iPhone before I left.

It was, though, one of the most exciting days I have had for a long time.