This image of tulips and a lily was originally captured on my lightpad. I created the background texture from an abstract acrylic painting on canvas that I had done during the pandemic. After photographing my painting, I combined it with the floral image in Photoshop, using the “soft light” blend mode at 71% opacity. Finally, I applied the “Distort>Twirl” filter in Photoshop to create a sense of movement in the image.

This is a Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos), a small North American butterfly in the Nymphalidae (brush-footed) family. It rests gracefully on a marigold in my backyard patio planter n Chevy Chase, MD.. Its intricate orange-and-black wings blend seamlessly with the flower’s fiery petals. The photo was taken handheld with a Nikon Z7 camera with a macro lens at ISO 1000, f/9.0, and 1/1000 second shutter speed.