A trio of Hydrangea images... which one do you prefer?

I love my Hydrangea blossoms when they are in bud, or bursting into bloom... and even when they are faded at the end of the blooming season. I keep hoping for frost so I can get some images of the faded blossoms kissed by frost.

In the meantime, I use iPhoto on a Macintosh computer for simple editing when I'm too lazy to do anything complicated with Photoshop. I upgraded recently to the very latest version... while poking around to see what new items were available for tweaking images, I discovered "antique" and "boost" effects, both of which were used to give interesting effects to the Hydrangea blossom you see above with the "antique" effect applied. Scroll down to see the SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera) image followed by the image with the "boost" option at 2. I like them all ... which one do you like best?!

SOOC image of faded Hydrangea blossom.

Hydrangea blossom with color boost set at level 2 (using iPhoto on a Macintosh).

Hydrangea Blossoms wet with rain... Summer, 2009

My Hydrangea survived and is slowly coming back... despite an attempt by a landscaper's assistant to kill it off (accidental, of course) by cutting it to the ground a couple of years ago. I've had this bush for over 30 years so it was quite upsetting to discover it cut down to within two inches of the ground after a winter cleanup of the garden. (The blue Hydrangea wet with rain is another image that will be in my gallery show in February, 2010... view all the images as a slide show if you have a couple of minutes to spare.)

Bee... Lace-cap Hydrangea... Pollen Gathering...

The bees have visited and revisited these tiny anthers and stripped many of pollen (the blue ones), whereas some have a bit of pollen left (those with bits of white on the blue) and others haven't yet been visited. There is so much going on at the macro level that I have trouble wrapping my head around it all! (Some of the buds haven't opened yet to reveal their pollen so the bees have plenty of pollen to gather for days to come... I'll try not to bore you all with daily shots of bees in the hydrangea!)

Lace-cap Hydrangea in Sunlight after the Rain...

There is a lovely Lace-cap Hydrangea bush in my garden by the front door to my house (northern exposure)... it gets very little sun and still blooms beautifully every year! It's a truly wonderful shade-loving plant.