On the (im)perfect nature of nature

My journal proves that I don't take flower photographs.

But it's April. Every April I look at the apple tree that's been providing fruit for 20 years and think that this will be the year there's no crop: the blossom hasn't emerged, or the blossom has emerged but into bitter cold, or I can't see any bees, or a storm pounds the petals to the ground.

This year the blossom is very late and yesterday I still couldn't see any from the ground. But I made a rare trip into my son's bedroom and discovered that the top of the tree is thick with buds.

I wanted to record this (extra)ordinary cycle but, standing at the window this morning, I realised how battered the leaves, buds and few flowers of this tree are, and that it wasn't possible to get the sort of immaculate flower shot that many others blip.

In the light of my disastrous (unblipped) attempt at a tulip last week, which gave me new respect for nature photographers, I started to think. Is my problem the stormy spring we've been having? Are other people's flowers just better quality than mine? Or are you amazing flower photographers spending hours searching out only the super-model specimen then processing out the blemishes?

Ah well, back to the old metal and weathered wood.