Cherry Blossom Special, photo by Harold Davis. View this photo larger.

The cherry trees are starting to bloom in our neighborhood, although exactly which trees in our coastal zone depends on the precise altitude. So the cherry blossoms have come up to within a couple of hundred feet of our house. They make a beautiful and elegant display.

I was out yesterday in the mist and light rain photographing. The sun started to peek out. What great conditions for photographing cherry blossoms and getting close enough to view the anthers!

In the photo above, my favorite of the set, the anthers–the portion of the stamen that produce the pollen–are in focus. The flower itself and water drops are slightly out of focus, with a macro rig and an aperture set to f/16.

In contrast, in this photo anthers and flower are both crisp at f/40:

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Technically, these photos are a great deal like the water drops on a spider web I photographed a day earlier. The biggest issues are micro focusing and subject motion from the wind. In addition, I had some problem getting high enough on my tripod to be really close to the blossoms.

A human element was that I was out photographing with Julian, who got bored (as any eight year old would have) after a while: “Daddy, you’ve been photographing that one flower for an hour and a half. Can’t we please do something else?”

Neither whining nor wind stopped me from getting this rather unusual view of water drops within the world of the cherry blossom:

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In this detail view of the very center of the cherry blossom I was surprised to discover a convex, reflective shape like a cherry dome. The beginnings, I suppose, of the fruit.

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