Early Autumn Blooms

My garden, though still beautiful, is approaching fall and winter mode. There are less blossoms there although some flowers still put on quite a show - the pineapple sage whose bright red flowers always transport me in a good mood. Or the cosmos - like the one in the photo above. These flowers came up from seeds that I scattered randomly without any concern where they fell down or where the wind would carry them. These pink ones settled at the rounded corner where they mingle with the Mexican sage - purple, white, magenta and pink! It's a true feast of bright colors. The cosmos are very tall and one afternoon when the sun was already in the west and slowly descending to the horizon I noticed how wonderful this flower glowed against the background of the trees across the street. I couldn't resist and ran inside to grab my camera to capture this special moment. It was the light that did the trick of course.

I layered the photo with Kim's texture "artjoytexture" in blending mode soft light at 100%; then I imported it to Lightroom and played with it. I'm usually not a huge fan of really bright and bold colors to an extreme, but I made an exception here. I'm still a beginner with the new Lightroom. I used Lightroom 2 quite a bit when I had scanned my slides and organized them there. But now I have Lightroom 5 and there is a lot more going on. I hope I'll get the hang of it!

I'm linking to Kim's Texture Tuesday today.