Summer Reruns

Yesterday's bike ride along the Mon River rail trail was in many ways the same-old, same-old.  I'd taken an oft-repeated track, and I photographed some of the same old blooms, repeats from this year as well as past years.  Although I've made little progress in my biking stamina, I feel that I've improved somewhat in my photography.  Witness these results:

The Forget-me-not (Myosotis scorpioides) has been the most challenging for me to get a decent shot.  This one (above) is the closest I've ever come to perfection.  I particularly like the fractal-like curvature of the unopened buds. 

For once, I've managed to get some additional depth-of-field and a decent focus.  One of these days I'm going to master the intricacies of auto-focus, but the vast majority of my shots have been manually focused.

Last year, I had labeled the bloom above a Thimbleberry.  That may still be acceptable, but I've decided upon Purple-flowered raspberry (Rubus odoratus) as the more correct name.  Again, I'm much happier with the crisp detail. No doubt part of the success is due to the stillness of the air yesterday, which later became beastly hot.

Last of all is the Virginia spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) that I saw a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't want to disturb (any more than I'd already disturbed) a large garter snake.  I have several years worth of spiderwort pictures, but something about this flower always draws me back.