Awesome job, Joe!! I just peeked through all of them and it looks like a blast! Thank you for letting us get a look at it. BB [Pirate :] and I made a day of it, cheering folks at the hospital all day between a morning and night event. He fell asleep on the bench on the sidewalk after about a half hour of our little version of the parade :) s*cky cellphone nighttime pic but I couldn't resist that little face!

Here's my go: 1-Gaillardia (sure) 2-Rudbeckia (sure) 3-Larkspur/delphinum? 4-unk 5-unk 6-unk (forget-me-nots?) 7-Gaillardia? 8-Nigella? Larkspur? 9-Coreopsis? 10-Jewels of Opar? 11-Daisy? Gaillardia? 12-Mother of Thyme (pretty sure) 13-Columbine (sure) 14-Baptisia (I think so too, pretty sure) 15-Peony? 16-Moss Rose (if itÂs a succulent, hard to see how fat it is) 17-Dianthus or a cousin (sure) 18-unk --Tina

OOh! Kathy, your FORTUNE'S DEAREST has nice big choppers! The color and form are very nice too. It's the granddaddy of them all, I guess. I never bought that one because I saw so many bad photos of it. If I had seen your photo three years ago, I probably would have bought it instead of GILDED KNIGHT. At the time, I didn't know that GILDED KNIGHT was only pollen fertile. Debra

Perhaps a felt backdrop might reflect back less light giving you a darker background for contrast. Darren, what I found to be rather helpful for getting a better handle on F-stops, etc is to take multiple pictures of the exact same subject changing only one of the settings at a time. [With a tripod, this would be quite easy.] For instance, take 3-5 shots in which all you change is the F-stop. Then leaving your F-stop on a "middle setting" [like 5.6], take several shots of the same subject changing only the shutter speed,and so forth. you can then either print out the pics or leave them on your PC. Personally, I like to print them out so I can make quick side by side comparisons. Even the "bad shots" can be highly instructive. ***Make sure if you print them out that you right down what settings each pic used.***