Bad Mergentheim Sakura

Already one week ago, but nonetheless still beautifully.

This year's flowering cherry in the spa gardens in my hometown.

Sorry for not having too much time to answer your appreciated comments currently!

Enjoy a great springtime!

In the sweet cherry garden

Cherry trees are really widely spread all over Germany.

Mainly the blackheart / schwarze Herz-Kirsche (Prunus avium subsp. juliana), a cultivated species of Prunus avium, known as wild cherry, sweet cherry, bird cherry, or gean.

Currently you see the cherry trees blossoming at every turn.

Especially in front of dark edges of the wood you see many of our wild or cultivated cherry trees. 

Compared to Asia, notably compared to Japan, we here in good old Germany normally don't generate such an hype around the cherry blossom season. 

Here the cherry tree is just a fruit tree like many other indigenous fruit-bearing trees: apple, pear, plum, mirabelle trees.

This means that with the exception of some 'Japanese style gardens' in some of our town or city parks, the cherry trees can be found in gardens, but most commonly in rural areas just standing on forest or flower meadows like in the photo above. 

In some regions you even find cherry tree plantations.

But not in the region where I am at home.

So last Friday afternoon, right on my way back home from work, 

I took a break eight kilometers away from my hometown.

With my "multi-purpose Red Porsche Killer" I diverted from my primary route to an agricultural road.

There I found the cherry tree meadow with round about 20 trees in full bloom.

This is definitely what we can call "in full bloom" or "full-blown", isn't it??? 

;-)

My hot tip to take photos of the blooming trees standing in a row: take a telephoto lens (if possible) and use an open aperture to "shrink" the trees together. 

I hope my "Sea of Blossom" series was not too exhausting for you the last four weeks.

Next time I definitely focus on other topics as well again.

Hopefully. ;-)

Last but not least some close-ups of the blackheart blossoms...

And once again an experiment with some textures...

...but I'm far away from being deeply contended with my result.

Less is more - is still my precept when editing photos!

The better the original material, the less postprocessing a photo needs.

Cherry blossom season 2014 in Germany

The cherry blossom season has started in Germany!!!

;-)

Though we've many cherry trees in the spa gardens of our hometown,

only two of them are 'Prunus serrulata', so Japanese Cherry.

Here you see the location of the two Japanese cherry trees.

The Japanese relief stele and Japanese cherry trees are sponsered by Bad Mergentheim's Japanese twin town Fuefuki 笛吹市  in the Yamanashi Prefecture.

Unfortunately the background is not the very best to take great photographs of the cherry trees out of different camera angles - and it's not only the huge and ugly distribution box that frustrates me and my photographic ambitions to capture the cherry blossoms in all directions with a suitable background.

So please conceive your own opinion about my shots of this year's cherry bloom...

桜 Sakura - the flower of the Japanese Cherry in my hometown

Bad Mergentheim, spa gardens, today.

  

Japanese relief stele and Japanese Cherry trees sponsered by Bad Mergentheim's Japanese twin town

Fuefuki 笛吹市  in the Yamanashi Prefecture.

Who can translate the Japanese characters cut in the stele for me?

--> "Gift from Isawa, Japan, (on a happy day in) May, 1993"

Thanks, Sapphire & Yoko & Sarah!

The two cherry trees left and right side of the relief stele are short prior the full bloom.

While taking the photographs of the blossoms and petals I tried to put the focus on a suitable background for my prime motifs - what was not always a simple task because of unfavourable surroundings in our park.

The thought flashed through my mind that ...

... I should try out my flashlight to create a different atomsphere on the blossoms.

On the spring equinox

Clouds wander about

The entrance of a mountain temple.

- Iida Dakotsu -

Happy hanami - happy flower viewing!