Hellebore's are the earliest blooming perennials, giving us months of photo ops.

I like being able to get in close with the Panasonic 45-200 lens, but often the depth of field is a little too deep.

To make this image have more impact I first chose an HDR filter in Topaz Adjust and then used Nik's Viveza 2 (Thank you Nik and Google for the lovely gift of free filters since I had bought a couple in the past 5 years) to darken the edges to bring more attention to one flower.