Memories of Late Summer Blooms

Howdy DC'ers. I view the posts in here from time to time, and am continually blown away by the creations being posted. So many of these images would look killer as posters hanging in my house.

This week I decided to try something more DC than I usually do. I had posted a few close-ups of bees & butterflies on globe thistles over in F&M, and brought 3 of my series together for a 13x19 montage. The effects are hardly ambitious compared to what you DC masters are up to in here -- basically a two-layer blur. I used a small amount of smart blur in PSE on the inner "window" (a selection with large feathering) of each frame to take away specific detail while leaving coarse grained shapes and colors intact. I composited that over a stronger dose of Gaussian blur on the outer "windows" combined with lightness reduction.

After my brief foray into the DC side, and as is obvious from the posts in this forum, it's clear there is a whole new realm of creativity, skills and tools involved here -- just when I thought I was getting a handle on the more documentary aspect of photography!

Any thoughts and critiques would be appreciated...