Bleeding heart

As I was saying yesterday, I like repeating patterns or shapes. This time it's from nature, in a bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis) that I came across on the campus of Seattle Pacific University this past May when I was there for a meeting. You never know when you might see something of such exquisite beauty. So it's always a good idea to bring your camera everywhere.

I used a wide aperture, namely f/4, for a narrow depth of field (the smaller the "f-number" the larger the opening and the smaller the depth of field), otherwise known as "selective focus" -- to throw the background out of focus and draw attention to the flowers. Even so, that one leaf at the bottom is too close to the focal plane of the bleeding hearts, so it isn't blurry enough and is a bit of a distraction. Using a blur filter in Photoshop on that section of the image is one solution. But I chose a different one for my final image, which you'll just have to wait until tomorrow to see.