This is what you have to deal with on the back roads of Lancaster county. I will take this any day over the Schuylkill expressway.

A long lens in the 300 to 400mm range allowed me to shoot across the field and capture this vignette of spring blossoms on this local farm.

A flowering tree adds a  touch of color to this rainy evening shot

The subtle pastel dogwood is shown here in full bloom and includes pink and white versions.

A selection of nice trees look great on this overcast spring day.

I wish I could have ventured around this property because it looked gorgeous just past the tree,but I had to settle for this shot from the road.

Flowering trees in the spring are so amazing.

These three lamp posts made a nice framing element for the gorgeous spring tree.Unfortunately the lights were not working so I had to light everything with flash to get some light on the subject. This tree had a nice shape and wonderful color and the japanese maples on the edges added a touch of warmth as well.

I love tulips and Longwood has one of the best displays each year. The problem is trying to get a shot with no one in it,so I always take my tripod and shoot several duplicate shots with each section devoid of people. For example I watched the area with the trees and made sure I had a shot clear of any people,then I watched the center and then the left side with the bushes. Even using this technique,it still takes some waiting,but it is worth the effort. There were at least twenty people here with me in this area,and the worst was one guy who parked his scooter right in the middle while he walked as slow as a snail through the garden. He finally left and I could finish my shot.

A quiet evening in this cemetery reveals a lovely flowering dogwood,which is the perfect backdrop for this moss-covered Angel figure.

This statue is covered in a lovely green patina of moss.The detail on these creations is beautiful.

I missed shooting this lovely Chinese Wisteria last year and thankfully I noticed it this year just in time to capture it. I always referred to this as grape hyacinth for some reason, but looking it up on google proved that was way off. Funny thing is we have grape hyacinth at our house and I knew it was called that,so go figure. The quaint little outbuilding was the perfect place to grow this gorgeous plant and everything works together.

I happened past this simple yet elegant old bicycle painted in the most pleasant spring tones and adorned with a bouquet of  spring flowers in both the front and back. Sometimes the simplest things are among the most beautiful and my hats off to the designer of this cool display. A dogwood in the distance adds just a touch of color to accent this lovely shot.

I have always thought this gazebo was very nice and when I saw the spring trees in bloom around it, I knew I had to ask permission to try and capture it. This was shot with a long lens between 300 and 400mm so I could place the colorful trees against the dark woods behind them instead of the bland sky which would have lost some of their color.A longer lens helps compress the distance to help get a great shot. Thankfully the owners were more than willing to let me try to capture this beauty.

This pair of trees is across the street from my back yard and they are very hard to capture without distractions,but I found an angle that worked on this rainy spring day.

There were columbine flowers in every color of the spectrum at Longwood,but 15 mph winds caused problems in the higher plants,so this group low to the ground was a perfect choice to avoid blur and they were a pleasant composition to boot.

A tower like structure can  be seen beyond the tulip garden at Longwood.

This is a good example of seeing beyond the basics and trying for something a little more visually appealing. The bottom image is what I saw driving by and the colorful tree made me stop and inquire if I could walk in the yard for a photo. I thought the blue bells contrasted perfectly with the pink tree,and I knew getting in low and close to the blue bells would make them a nice strong foreground element and you can clearly see what camera angles can do to improve a shot.I think the photo is nicely balanced and is a new favorite of mine from this spring, and special thanks to the family that left me onto the yard in the first place.

Handheld at a slow shutter speed and quickly panned created this blur of floral color. Basically just goofing around.

I never write down what the names of flowers are,but I liked the subtle pastel look of these among the bell-shaped flowers.

I will be sharing some shots in the coming days from spring at Longwood Gardens. I have not shot flowers for a couple years,so it was a nice change to see the beautiful displays at Longwood.

These purple flowers are supposedly some species of invasive and yes we have them at our house as well, but this field looked lovely with loads of them in bloom. you have to get just the right angle to see their color at its best and a polarizer helped with the capture. I am sure they will soon get tilled under in preparation for the first crop planting.