Spring Mirage - (enlarge)

So glad you liked this one Bill!

Hey Gail!  I like the colors a lot.  Also like the mix of soft and aggressive and the textures of the yellow parts as well.  Flowers are so awesome.  WE are overrun by cicadas here -- we have thousands of them, and they prevented me from planting another rose bush, as they are everywhere and so creepy.  I'll send you an email

Thank you for dropping by and sharing your thoughts on this image. You have such 'insight' when you view images, love to hear what you think. I would be totally 'creeped' out by all those bugs!!!! Hope they don't come this far!!

Very beautiful, Gail, great work as usual!!

A beautiful image with nature as your suject. You make it look fantastic. Florin and Mike are both my teacher also! Mikr is my serious teacher and Florin is my comic refreshing maestro! Warm regards my friend.

Hi Gail;

This is really nice. I like how you combined the two images and made a sort of "portrait". It shows your style too. I have some of these in my garden and it's never occurred to me to do something like this.

Many thanks for your visit and critique. Very happy to hear you enjoyed this image. I love Irises.

Gorgeous color and very sharp detail!  All of your efforts to improve are paying off!

thank you my happy friend, smiles all round!!! Gail

Yes Mike is a good teacher and Florin, well, we all need to smile, and he certainly can make me smile!

It is good to hear you enjoyed this image. I love Iris's.

Thank you for those encouraging words, we both seem to be on the same journey!!

Lovely viewpoint of a great flower. What I really like in particular is the difference between the mohawk/caterpillar and the soft background.

I appreciate you sharing what you liked most about this composition, a lot of people think this portion of the flower looks like a caterpillar!

Always interesting to see what you come up with in the macro world. At this level things drift from the certain into the unknown and become mysterious forms the wander between the animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom. Your pictures shed their labels as a snake sheds its old skin.

I appreciate those thoughts Jack. Because the background was dull and grey, I tried to add an element that would draw the viewer to the image, while still sticking to the theme of the Iris. They are such beautiful yet mysterious looking flowers to me.