Fun with Flowers


Playing around with orchids. I have access to some beautiful blooms at the moment. And I took a bunch of pictures just before my desktop failed to open my photo editing software. Frankly between eye surgery and desktop software issues I had forgotten I took these pictures. So this morning was a lot of fun. I got to try different processing techniques back to back and learned a few things I believe.


At least I had fun with this very sculpted flower with amazing grace. Photographing them is not always easy because the slightest disturbance makes the spike of orchids more for it seems forever. And the flower itself has depth and the curvature of the stalk adds to that. I was very happy with the picture above because of the focus on the whole array of blossoms. But sometimes a bit of out of focus, like in the vignette treatment below, has its place.



And who says we need the entire spike of flowers. Got up close with the ones below and then cropped it in some more. But because they are all placed on their spike just so by Mother Nature, you cannot move a blossom over just a hair like you can with a bouquet in a vase at home.



I had mistakenly been calling the spike a stalk. A search through google showed that orchid lovers have their own unique language. See "What's a spike?" for more terms. I was very interested in Keiki, which is a baby orchid which grows from a node on a cane or spike or sometimes from the base.

Lots to learn from these very different plants. And not just how to photograph them well.

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