Advent Day 6 Bluebells

There is probably no time of year that excites me and frustrates me more than when the bluebels appear. It is my own little rite of spring as a I tramp to those secret spots, (which all photographers have) to take see if we have reached peak bloom yet.

The frustrating point is that each year the images are always less than I hoped. I mean how hard is it to take images of groups of static flowers, but somehow the results are always less than I hoped.

Generally I end up experimenting with different angles, ICM, anything to get that elusive shot.  Below are some of my more interesting attempts

However I the one shot that stood out is this one

I call it the last stand and it was taken using a flash and a large aperture on a 90mm prime to dim the background. It was taken late in the season as the flowers started to go over. I like the brooding menace of the forest encroaching and represents to me the end of spring and the start of summer