A friend texted me a photo she saw on Instagram that someone had taken of Hartford and asked if it really looks like that here right now.
I had to laugh. It was a super photoshopped image. I don’t mean a little cropping or color correction, but shifting the hues dramatically to shades that I have never seen in our flowering trees. Maybe there are trees down South that look like that, but there aren’t in Connecticut.
She was right to ask though. More than any other time, I keep seeing images posted of Hartford which were taken in another year. Some are making no claims to be recent, but others imply that they were. If you are out and about, you know what has and has not blossomed yet in Bushnell Park this year. But if you are limiting your outings, and don’t know the specific conditions required for every last species to bloom, then you might think that what you’re looking at on every Instagram account is our current reality.
So, rest assured, all the photos in this post were taken this year. In fact, they were taken yesterday. Aside from cropping, the photos have not been altered, for better or worse.
And here’s why: I don’t think I can improve upon nature.
