Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

I've got a plum or apricot tree (I'm not really sure which - the birds take all the fruit) that I inherited in my backyard and it always blooms right around this time of year. Easily the earliest blooming flowers in the neighborhood by a wide margin. It's one of my favorite subjects to take pictures of and it always reminds me of the Usagi story "Courage of the Plum". Here are a couple of shots, but you can find the whole album over on Imgur - http://imgur.com/a/OqDci

Nice!

(thanks for sharing)

very beautiful! thanks for sharing with us

I like especially that one with the "sunbeam" on one branch in front, and the rest in a darker, stormier look. was it really a sunbeam, or did you help out with a flashlight? Whatever... I'd like to have one of those trees, too. Maybe someday...

Greetings,
Jens

These were all taken with a Canon 60D DSLR with a Tamron AF 18-270mm Macro Zoom Lens and a Canon Speedlite 580EX II flash.

It was a pretty cloudy/overcast day outside so no straight shafts of light, most of the light on the blooms were from the flash or flash bounces.

Great pictures!

We have a few purple leaf plum trees at home and they began blooming a few weeks ago. Spring always seem to come early to Southern California!

While So Cal isn't the best place for Sakura, our local central park has a number of trees that are now in bloom...

The trees were a gift from Huntington Beach's sister-city: Anjo, Japan.

Today I bought a "prunus persica 'Bonanza' CAC", only 60 cm yet *cough* which is some sort of eatable peach ... It's supposed to open the blooms in april/ may (last week it was still freezing in the nights here) and I hope it will look a little bit like your plums...

Greetings,
Jens