Late bloomers

The backyard flower garden held a surprise yesterday.  Despite the hard frost on Monday morning, a fair number of Marsh Gentians (Gentiana pneumonanthe) were blooming their collective hearts out on Tuesday afternoon.

These are both focus stacks, courtesy of Magic Lantern.  The flower in the upper image was much closer to the ground, so it wasn't affected by the occasional breeze.  The bottom flower was much more exposed, and I had to go through the stack several times to eliminate probably half of the layers where the flower had been blown to one side or the other. 

Forks of Cheat

Sunday, November 2^nd, turned out to be a crisp fall day with minimum cloud cover.  It was late afternoon by the time that I got to the Forks of Cheat, a place I hadn't visited for a couple of years.

By then, the sun was fairly low, casting long shadows across the field behind the Forks of Cheat Baptist church.  This shot was at 17mm, my wide-angle max.

The following shot is from the same location, but at 55mm.   It's a shame that I have a lens hood, but I seldom remember to pack it.