Now that I’ve finished the hard labor in our garden, my primary obligations are complete and I don’t need to squeeze things into super short snippets of time. Instead of snapping pictures with my phone because it’s convenient and no-fuss, I feel like I can get out my real camera. It’s a little more effort to adjust the aperture and shutter speed, but that means I also take a little more care in framing a photo and paying attention to light. The photographs are more satisfying when I put that little bit of extra effort in.

We had a weekend of arts in Richmond, from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to a 7 o’clock showing of Loving Vincent – a film in which every single frame is hand-painted in the style of Vincent Van Gogh – at the Byrd Theatre. It was awe-inspiring. The museum and the movie made me wish I were an artist.

Photography is the closest I can get to feeling artistic. Besides writing, it is the one craft I have have even a modicum of patience to develop. I had fun with my camera on our trip to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden on Sunday. The flowers did all the work of being beautiful. Very little was required of me other than to frame the shot, check the light, and appreciate the colors and textures with my camera.

I made sure to stop and smell the roses. There really is no fragrance quite as lovely. Only a handful of the thorny bushes were blooming among the hundreds still in bud. I bet in a month the rose garden will be spectacular. The air will be heady with their scent. I could go back in a few weeks to experience it. I have that kind of time right now.