Toward the Light

There are times when a simple and elegant composition unexpectedly shows itself. And there are times when the lighting presents the subject in an unusual and unexpected way. When these two things happen together it makes me happy. This image of a Black-eyed Susan was a fun one to make. Those of us who photograph flowers rarely focus on their back-sides. The backlighting for this single bloom was so perfect and the plant so hairy it compelled me to focus on that rather than on the simple beauty of its face. I photographed 5 or 6 different compositions but ended up choosing this one as my favourite. The balancing wedge of the evening sunlight and similar diagonal angle of the tree-line and the bloom were why I composed the frame this way. I put the lens’ focus point on the stem and mostly hidden “eye” of the flower as these seemed to provide natural points of interest in the image.