Pink Water Lily After Rain

The rain that began on Tuesday night as I drove home from my visit to the fair continued into Wednesday. Showers moved around the region, but the day wasn't a total washout. Around lunchtime, it looked like a clear spot would be arriving, according to the online weather radar (yes, as an outdoors kinda gal, I'm a staunch weather watcher - and there are so many online resources now to make it easier to see what weather is coming). And so I made off for a quick visit to the Arboretum's lily pond, where I found many colors and varieties of water lilies in full, resplendent bloom.

After the rain is one of the best times to photograph flowers. The blooms always look very fresh, fully hydrated. And you get the added visual interest of water droplets on the petals. And while the sky was overcast and there wasn't really any bright sun during my visit, the colors on the pictures turned out surprisingly bright and cheerful.

When I was visiting the Arboretum about a month ago, I was kneeling on the ground, photographing flowers and their reflections in the lily pond, and a woman approached me and asked me a question: How did I decide what to focus on? She did not own a camera herself (yet) but she was thinking of buying one. And she thought flowers might be a subject she'd enjoy photographing.

I've thought about that question many times since then, since it is one of the profoundest, yet most basic, questions a photographer can answer. And it often is what sets an outstanding shot apart from a merely average one. What do I choose to focus on? How do I choose what to include and what to leave out? Where do I put the bloom in my shot? At the corner, or the center?

I was thinking, again, about that question while visiting the lily pond on this day. For there were many blooms and many reflections. One of the challenges in photographing the lily pond - which in late summer is just chock full of greenery and blooms of all kinds - is often as much what to leave OUT of the shot as what to include. It's an art exercise. Which shapes? Which angles? Which colors? What composition? Where to stand to get the light where you want it in the shot?

Which brings me around to this specific picture. I photographed this flower at the middle of the shot, but I didn't like it as much that way. What I wanted was the pink bloom, the curled-up green leaf to its left, and the bud to the right. I initially didn't want to include that green lily pad at the top, and so I shot most of the photos somewhat awkwardly, trying to narrow in on the bloom and leave out that lily pad.

However, the geometrics of the photo itself somehow seemed to insist on including the green lily pad. And oddly enough, when I downloaded the pictures onto the computer and finally looked at them all, the picture itself was right: it was better, somehow softer and more interesting, with the lily pad included.

The lily pad is an unfinished element that suggests a thing outside of frame. It gives me permission to dream . . . imagine a frog, perhaps, just outside the shot, sitting on that green lily pad, coveting the bright pink bloom. A frog who just might become a prince, if kissed by the right girl. And for now, perhaps, a frog in waiting, just kissed by the rain.

How do you decide what to focus on?

I wanted a pretty little tune to go with this pretty little bloom. And so the song to accompany this photo is Mark Knopfler, with Darling Pretty. I first heard this song on the soundtrack to the movie Twister, one of my guilty pleasures. :-)

There will come a day, darling pretty
There will come a day when hearts can fly
Love will find a way, my darling pretty
Find a heaven for you and I