I’ve accepted that I cannot live in the mountains forever,  I don’t think my wife would appreciate it.  I do love the back-country (and take every opportunity to go there) but my back yard produces subjects that can be nearly as interesting.
This Passion Flower is almost an invasive weed in our yard.  We planted it to grow on our fence and it has been extremely effective at covering every inch of the fence.  Unfortunately it is also extremely adept at spreading its seed into our vegetable garden, our flower garden and everywhere else.  Needless to say there were plenty of flowers for me to cut a few nights ago when I decided that the Passion Flower needed to be photographed.  I am thankful that Molly is patient because when I decide to work in the studio I effectively occupy every square inch of our already small living room.  Does the studio leave a little to be desired?  Yes.  But it works and it comes with a voice activated light stand if I ask nicely.  Looking back at this photo I wonder if it would have worked better with another light camera right and high.  Maybe it’s time to set up the studio again.
This image also let me play with Helicon Focus a neat program that lets you blend images that are each focused at different points on the subject.  Using this software lets me use f/8 where this lens is the sharpest instead of going out to f/32 and losing resolution to diffraction.  It works great when your subject does not move but I imagine that with some time in Photoshop you could correct for some subject movement.  Helicon Focus gets a thumbs up from me, I’m looking forward to using it again when the subject is right.