Today we go back to February 2014, as the cherry trees in a local park came into bloom. Seems like a simple shot, but it required finding a photogenic branch with a blossom catching the light from the right angle, and a short depth-of-field to have the other branches present but not distracting (enhancing the idea of a full tree instead of a lone branch,) and of course the blue sky for contrast. Not an elaborate composition, but just putting a little thought into it. The goal is to be able to do this automatically, to make it look easy.
Compare this to yesterday’s shot, and notice how the colors in this one are mostly at either end of the spectrum, either bleached out in the sun or becoming dark in the shadows – bright, high-contrast light will do this. But of course, the blossoms against a grey sky would have had far less impact, so…