Aphids are notorious garden and crop pests, but they also feed on wild flora like this goldenrod plant.

Aphids are rather unpleasant creatures from the human perspective: they tend to destroy plants we’ve special care to grow. I don’t find them very pleasant- or artful-looking etiher; I’m sure there’s a way to tap into their “natural beauty” but I am not equipped to see or record it. In this shot they kind of provide an asymmetrical blight on the stem of goldenrod blossoms.

I thought about cutting out the lower left corner, i.e. aphid-free flowers, but decided on smaller crop because I thought the flowers were the compelling part of the photo. As in yesterday’s photo, this one does not lend itself to a monochrome treatment. Yellow flowers seem to resist it— in fact, from a flash macrophotography point of view, they are kind of difficult in general with a propensity for blown-out highlights and color casting. I also find it hard to bring out a lot of detail or texture, but maybe that’s because some of these petals don’t have much detail (that you could reasonably expect at these magnifications).