Our Redbud blooms began to open on Wednesday, but I found their young leaves a bigger attraction. Since the blooms don’t appear at the branch ends, you can’t get close on both blooms and leaves. In this case, I could get some oof blooms to add a bit of color in the background. (7D2, 180mm macro L, 1/60 s, f/16, iso 1600 due to the breeze, tripod, a 6 shot stack, cropped to 8.5 x 11 and rotated to vertical)
I don’t think the blooms could have been more lovely, Mark. I really love how these new leaves and how you placed the limb at an angle against a nice smooth background. Now I am thinking I need to go out and check our new maple leaves and see if I can capture a nice presentation of them!
Mark: Got a nice 
meter spike from this one! Probably my favorite tree (we have 4 in our yard). This looks like a Rising Sun variety which is my favorite of the favorites. Marvelous light and BG, especially the OOF buds adding the magenta area. Superbly crafted image. 
>=))>
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A gorgeous bloom here, Mark. The OOF area works perfectly too. Excellent…
I could see this one as a square crop too with just the upper vertical blooms as a completely separate image… 
Hi Mark - I really like the upper part of the photo with the new colorful leaves and pretty background. And I love all the details in the new fresh leaves - lots to look at and enjoy. I think everything about that portion of the photo works well and feels cohesive. I think the rougher part of the branch at the bottom feels a bit disjointed. It does give context but I think it is such a contrast from the upper part in tone, texture, color, and feeling that it distracts from the rest of the scene. So, with all that said, if this were my photo, I would probably crop out the darker branch.
Just beautiful Mark, all the edges really sharp and well delineated from the soft, pastel background. Nicely positioned in the frame and I like the play of shadows on the young leaves. As far as the rougher part on the bottom…I think the context it adds is important, and its small, and I do like the contrast in texture, from rough to smooth.