Spring flowers

It's spring! Which means that everything is blooming at once. So here are a gazillion pictures of pretty flowers that were taken in my city's week of spring sunshine. I'm always amazed by how many different flowers there are on campus! They are so bright and colorful.

Have you ever heard of the Bulgarian holiday Baba Marta, where red and white bracelets called Martenitsa are given out as a greeting to welcome the end of winter and beginning of spring? Well my TA for math is from there, and he brought this tradition along to the people who visited him in office hours. Technically the holiday is in March, so we were a bit late, but I still liked the sharing of his culture. Anyways, you are supposed to tie the bracelet around the first blooming plant you see. 

Well, on campus, everything bloomed at once! But I decided to choose a small bright bushy-eyed cherry tree on the edge of Red Square. I was a little afraid I would hurt the tree, so I tied is loosely around the tree, and as the tree grows, I'm planning to go back and cut it off so it doesn't restrict the branch. But it was kind of deliriously exciting to take my bracelet off and tie it on a tree. I'm not sure why, and I'm not going to analyze it, but anyways, here's photographic evidence! haha.

I really enjoy the one part in focus and the seeming zoomed in focal point to that spot. I particularly enjoy the pop of color. These are the brightest flowers I have seen. 

I also like the surprise of the yellow dots smattering the blue.

A lively strip of magenta to break up the monotony...

I wish I could have gotten that little piece of yellow out of the corner, but the wind was waving these flowers around like crazy. I'm actually quite happy with the crisp detail I managed to get; definitely using a fast shutter speed. I also liked the coloring. Yellow is expected, but this young flower is striped with green, which is fascinating to me.

I liked the smattering of colors given by the flower petals blown away in the wind. The bright colors don't overpower each other, which is nice.

The delicacy of dandelions is absurd. But their puffy seeds are so beautiful in the air.

I think this is wisteria. It is beautiful, isn't it? I like the way it catches the sunlight. The white seems to glow, withholding the light.

Enjoy the flowers around you, and the many more to come in summer.