I was actually happy when the tripod registrar at Longwood Gardens told me that I could only use my tripod until noon the day I visited.  That forced me to think about what I could photograph handheld and my first thought was to pull out the Lensbaby.  I quickly formulated a plan in my mind that would take me to all of the areas that absolutely required the use of a tripod….macro images, shots bracketed for HDR, etc.  Once noon rolled around, and the Conservatory began to get more crowded, I was more than happy to put my tripod down and concentrate on creating more abstract images.  I took many orchid images using the Lensbaby Composer that day. The blog photo, however, was a shot taken early in my visit using the 100mm macro lens at f/4.5, 1/200th of a second, ISO 200.  My goal was to keep the ornament in focus while allowing the background pointsettia to be out of focus, but still recognizable.  I experimented with f/2.8, but at that focal length, parts of the ornament were out of focus.  f/4.5 seemed to be just right.  Having a cream poinsettia in the background was the perfect compliment to the soft pink ornament.  A red poinsettia would have been much too strong.  I’m pleased with the end result.