March and April bring fresh new foliage back into our lives.

I love to capture this special time of year in photos, so that I can better recall at any time of year the brilliance and translucency of those young spring leaves.  But sometimes, when going through the day’s photos, I have found that they don’t capture the spirit of what I saw through the lens.

Turns out the secret is to shoot into the sun.  Here is one example of what I mean, right outside my front door:

Here’s a clump of culinary sage (Salvia officinalis) with the sun at my back.  The new foliage is coming on, a soft gray-green (sage green, if you will), but the photo is not too memorable.