The crocuses all over the Garden are in full bloom.  My favorite place to photograph them is on Evening Island where they blanket the grassy hillside in purple, yellow and white.  The grass allows you to get right down on your belly and photograph them straight on at ground level.  My brand new tripod arrived last week and this weekend I finally had a chance to try it out.  It's a Gitzo GT2531EX with a Really Right Stuff ball head, if you are interested, and it's amazing for macro work because you can get it down to within an inch of the ground...perfect for crocuses and other low growing plants and flowers.  I'm taking an advanced portfolio class in the Garden photography program right now and I am focusing on capturing the spring blooms in a more dreamy, abstract way, using the widest apertures my macro lenses will allow. Using shallow depth of field, selective focus and blurring creates a more impressionistic portrait of the flower.  Crocuses are ideal for this kind of shooting and that shallow depth of field takes care of blurring all the dead, brown grass the crocuses are blooming in - not so attractive.  I am particularly drawn to the purple flowers.  They have such lovely patterns on their petals and I love the way the golden stamens and purple petals are complimentary colors.

Here are a few of my crocus portraits...

The white crocuses lend themselves beautifully to the use of backlighting.