I have a vague memory of an early photography professor of mine making a project about flowering trees. I can't find it anywhere. At this point I don’t know if it was a real thing or some sort of mixed up memory.

Maybe I am recalling various pictures of flowering trees I saw as a student and they became loosely assembled as a body of work. Maybe it was just a project I always wanted to do and needed to tell myself there was some sort of legitimate precedence for it. Some of these pictures in my memory almost became better than the real thing.

In some of the years since being in this photo class I have taken time during early and middle spring to witness these trees. I first did this in Ohio, where the dogwoods bloomed in the hilly forests.

This year is the first in a good while that I have been able look again. The difference between what I remember and what I am doing now is that I am not just looking for the flowering trees, but I am looking for the places where they are. It’s a subtle enough distinction, but I hope these pictures explain.

Where I live flowering trees are in abundance in the residential areas. They don't hold the same appeal for me as seeing them out in the woods. It's the presence of the colors from the homes, the cars, the tulip gardens.

When it's a bloom of white or pink in a field of greens and browns there is something different to behold. These blooms are remarkable in their difference from the lush greens of spring.

I have to concede that in the same vein that when people remark about the beautiful clarity of Lake Michigan, often unaware that it is the product of a stunning loss of biodiversity due to invasive mussel species, I think there are a few briefly beautiful but invasive Bradford Pear trees in these pictures. I honestly can’t be sure - there are various white budding trees this time of year. And I am looking more at the places where the trees are flowering, not so much the trees themselves.