Quince blossom

I was spoilt for choice today in the garden because the last week of sunshine means that all the flowers that have appeared look glorious. Maybe I'll manage to catch more of them before they lose their wonderful lustre.

Quince gets a mention in a famous children's poem by Edward Lear called 'The Owl and the Pussycat'' - "they dined on mince and slices of quince..." Today's blip is the blossom of the quince shrub. It thrives against all odds in the shady corner between a garage door and a flight of steps. The flowering is particularly profuse this year.

The immature fruit is green, but in late autumn it changes colour to yellow with hard, strongly perfumed flesh. One year I made quince jelly, but it needs a jelly bag and it was a bit too much of a palaver to my mind for very little jelly. However, it was delicious. Maybe if there's a good crop this year, I'll be moved to give it a go again!

I added a light accentuated edges filter to define the delicate petals. This was taken in a shady corner and deep into the shrub. Hence the fast setting of ISO 1600 to allow a shutter speed of 1/125th and f8 for reasonable depth of field.