Mary and I go to the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino, CA about once a quarter.  I am a bit of a bibliophile, so I love the library and its exhibits – if you have never seen a Gutenberg Bible, a Shakespeare First Folio, or a Audubon Birds of America – they are all there in one room!  However, the real reason Mary and I go there so often is the varied and beautiful gardens.  The roses are in full bloom right now.  Here are some favorites.

I took one camera and one lens – my Canon 5D Mark III and a 100 mm macro lens.  My plan was to shoot close-ups of some roses, crop them into squares, and then black out the background.  I shot all of these at f/2.8 and higher ISO’s as the wind was blowing a bit.

I processed them in Lightroom and added a bit of exposure to really get them to glow and I used the adjustment brush to darken the background.  What do you think?

And one more with a completely different look.

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