Springing Through Winter...

As I arrived home from work today, I had high ambitions. I quickly replaced my drab work attire with tennis shoes and a camera, with intentions of getting exercise while scouring  for "newness." Three feet out the door I was captivated by all the "new" flowers. Here it is, the beginning of January, and I am finding my rose bushes blooming, and bees pollinating. Long story short, I never made it past the front gate. I wandered from flower to flower trying to capture the magic of spring in the middle of what should technically be winter.

I like these two photographs of the flowers but I feel they are missing something small and I can't pinpoint it. 

I loved the way the sunlight was only lighting up this particular section, which happened to be the area with the most definition between old and new. Kind of reminded me of a waterfall of flowers as well.

I know I promised to stop taking pictures of the pets, but I couldn't resist on this one. I loved how he was lounging on the bench and his eyes were lighting up in the sun. Meet Circle.

I really liked the original photo as well but as soon as I filtered out the color, I fell in love.

I feel like my exposures are really beginning to improve now, I could still use a bit of work, but I am much more confident that my exposure will not be what ruins my photographs anymore. What I need to work on now is my composition, which is another reason I uploaded the photograph of Circle. I feel that I really nailed the composition on this photograph. I started to take the photograph from almost directly in front of the bench, and then realized that angling the bench through the photograph might add leading lines that would draw the viewers eyes to the focus of the photograph.