Went with Aphra to Berkeley Botanical Gardens. Since I am still in my ‘infrared’ phase, I took most of my shots with my newly converted D30. At the time, I was very excited by the lily pad shots. When I got home and processed the images, I am very pleased with the California poppies instead.

For these shots, I popped the contrast by doing a second blurred layer. The blurred layer was applied in ‘Overlay’ mode. That mode brightened the poppies and darkened the distracting background.

With Aphra’s influence, I decided to try out a square crop.

I did have a hard time choosing between these two shots. So, I included both of them. Although, I liked the image on the front page the best.