Each year, just as the new season’s roses are appearing, I set out to take pictures of rose buds for the readers who love them (you know who you are). I never do as well as I hope.
It isn’t good to be too critical of your own photography, so I’m offering these up as part of my latest series of posts on roses.
Feathered buds always appeal to me more than the plain ones. The one above is an old rose in Whitehall Park, Darwen.
I’ve written before about the way roses photobomb each other. Just-opening blooms, which I consider to be nobbut buds, are particularly good at photobombing. Their colour draws the eye even when they are not the intended subject of the picture.
Try as I might, I can’t quite capture their magic. Perhaps that’s because, for me, the magic of a rose bud is the flower it will release.
Shared for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
Susan Rushton 
Smelling salts, please! Given how beautiful these images are, I am bewildered by your thinking they are not as good as you hoped they’d be, though I suppose that is understandable from one who loves flowers. Capturing a real flower in any portrait is like capturing a person: we can but come close. I still felt as though I could touch these and get thorned. What wonders! The first three in particular had me lingering. Thank you for starting my week with beauty!
My pleasure. I do like these the best of the ones I’ve taken and I enjoy trying each year, so thanks for inspiring me.