Hodges Gardens

My husband and I, along with my parents, took a road trip to Hodges Gardens this past Saturday. We had a great time and I got a few photos. 

There were butterflies galore.

The dogwoods, white and pink were in full bloom, along with the azaleas and the camellias.

The sound of water was prevalent as we walked around. There were a couple of waterfalls too.

This was an odd little sight, made odder by my processing of the photo. I just liked the lines of the stumps and the way the light was shining on them.

And this, I believe, is one of my favorite photos of the day. These four women stopped my on my way down from the observation deck (no mountains, but the ground undulates marvelously in this part of the state) and asked if I'd take their picture for them. One of them handed me their iPhone and I snapped two shots. When they looked at it, they realized one of them had her sunglasses on so they wanted me to take another shot. As I was getting them all lined up on the screen, which was hard to see in the sunlight, I told them I really didn't do good taking pictures of people, that I was better taking pictures of things that didn't get all nervous when they saw a camera. They giggled (and I got a great shot) and said they saw my big camera and figured I'd be the perfect one to ask to take their picture.

As they left going up the hill I got two shots of them walking away. In this shot, the camera focused more on the grass in front of me leaving the women in the background blurred. I also got a clear focused shot of the women, but there is just something about this blurred image of them in the background that I love. It makes me think of the mandate you often hear, more especially when it comes to anything creative, that you have to learn the rules in order to know how to break them. Sometimes I wonder if it is not also that way with life.