Hepatica Portrait

Hepatica looks like a pale pink buttercup, which makes a lot of sense since it is in the buttercup family. This is more of a snapshot than a carefully made photograph of Hepatica, but sometimes that is the best I can do. I used my 200 mm lens, from a distance, and captured this clump of Hepatica in bloom across the trail from where I stood. I wanted to get closer up, and I wanted more color. But it was cold that day and for the previous few days, so the flowers were not exactly photogenic. But this photo does a great job of simply showing what Hepatica looks like. Check other photos posted here to see the characteristic leaves. I shot this with a 35 mm SLR (Nikon D-70) format, but cropped the edges of the 2/3 ratio to make a square. Sometimes I allow myself the freedom to compose a shot as though I were working with a square view finder, rather than a rectangle.