Something a bit different. Obviously this flower wasn’t outside – it was a leftover from a bouquet I bought my wife. It provided a nice opportunity for me to experiment with a new toy, my first, true macro lens.

The Canon EF 100mm f2.8 L is pretty cool and well-known for its ability to do amazing closeup work. I won’t use it much but thought it would be fun to play with in the yard with flowers, bugs and snowflakes. The detail is clearly pretty awesome.

What do you do when you are bored but don’t feel like driving around for a photo op? You head to the backyard! Actually, in this case, our side yard in front where my wife has an awesome flower garden going on.

Among the subjects, the Centennial State’s flower which I have to say is just beautiful. I don’t have a “real” macro lens so make do with standard glass but it is fun to get out there and see what I get.

There are 70 specials of columbine, a third of which are native to North America. For the Colorado state flower, it is specified as the Rocky Mountain columbine, like these, with the purple and white. It is said the purple / blue represent the sky, the white the snow and the yellow our state’s gold mining history.