Here I am finally in Portland, visiting with my friend Paul. He proposed an exercise for this afternoon to take photographs in the orchard next to his drive. He has a book by Dana Buckley, called Fifty, which is a series of close-up photographs of flowers. You can see more at her website. Paul described the exercise as taking a photograph of a flower with the background out of focus, and developing that photograph into a black and white print. I don’t have a proper macro lens, so the medium telephoto I had with me had to do. Although there were a number of flowers around, being in an orchard, I guess it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that the photograph I printed, shown here, was of an apple.