#10 I Love Hydrangeas!

Always have, always will. But I haven't had much luck in growing them until this year. And, while the plants are still young, they seem to finally be taking hold and have offered me some blossoms in return for all my fussing and fretting over them. Sweet of them, huh?

I have been gathering small bouquets of them to put around the house. I took some pictures yesterday and then played around on Photoshop. (I won't get into any debates about whether or not tweaking in Photoshop is "cheating". It's just one tool among many.) It always amazes me how just changing the lighting, color, and grain in a photo can so drastically change the mood of a photograph.

Here's the original photo, in all of it's pink sweetness:

Then I increased the light and tweaked the color a bit - an ethereal sort of feeling now:

Then I went back to the original and played with it in a different way and now it looks old and moody:

Back again to change it to black and white:

And then again to see what a filter with the black and white would do:

Each has qualities I like, but I think I like the original and the simple black and white version best. Maybe I'm a purist at heart after all!

Which one speaks to you?