Water lilies are one of my favorite flowers and I was delighted this past Wednesday to see that several of them are already in bloom at a small man-made pond at Green Spring Gardens, including a couple of pink ones. Later in the season there will also be lotuses at this pond, but it appears to be too early for them right now. It is also a bit early for most of the dragonflies—I love to take photos of dragonflies perching on lotuses and water lilies.
Since there are so few water lilies blooming, I could not get the wider shots that remind me of the paintings of Claude Monet, one of my favorite artists, so I focused instead on capturing individual portraits of several of the flowers. It has always seemed to be that water lilies glow with an inner light and I was happy to capture a hint of that light in several of these photos.
This tiny Cabbage White butterfly (Pieris rapae) paused for only a moment on a pink flower, but I managed to get a shot of it on Wednesday at Green Spring Gardens. If you look closely, you can just make out the butterfly’s stunning green eyes.
The composition of this image is pretty simple, but I think it is effective. I would have liked to blur out the background a bit more, but even though it is cluttered, it is not distracting. I think that is because the pink and white are so bright and distinctive that they “pop” against the green background.
On Wednesday at Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historic garden just a few miles from my home, I got a really good look at this bee’s proboscis, the long, straw-like tongue that it uses to collect nectar. From my angle, it looked more like a deadly weapon. Yikes! As you can probably tell, I have switched to using my macro lens most of the time now that the warmer weather has caused more insects to reappear.
One of my friends on Facebook named this bee the “Gene Simmons” bee, because it reminded him of an iconic pose by the singer from the band KISS in which his extended tongue reached to the tip of his chin. It is hard to know if it is true, but according to urban legend, Simmons had his tongue insured for a million dollars during the 1970’s, when KISS was at its height of popularity. The popular rumor at the time that he had a cow’s tongue grafted onto his own, however, has been disproven.
I was happy this past weekend to see that Pink Lady’s Slipper orchids (Cypripedium acaule) were still in bloom in Orkney Springs, Virginia during my recent church retreat at Shrine Mont. Last year at about the same time of the year I spotted a few of them and was successful in finding some when I searched that same general location. The retreat center is located in a mountainous and cooler area of the state, which means that the growing season for flowers is a little behind my area, where the lady’s slippers faded a few weeks ago.
At first I spotted only a few of these fragile little flowers, but eventually I came upon a large patch of almost a dozen of them, as you can see in the final photo. It was a bit of a challenge for me to compose photos of flowers, because I am so used to taking pictures of wildlife. I have to admit, though, that I enjoyed having the luxury of taking my time to compose my shots—with wildlife I often have to react quickly to capture a fleeting moment, so composition is not usually my top priority.
I was thrilled earlier this month to spot a dozen or so Pink Lady’s Slippers (Cypripedium acaule) as I exploring a creek in Prince William County, Virginia. Most of them were growing individually, but there were a few small clusters of these beautiful native orchids.
I have seen these flowers several times in previous years, so I had a general idea of where to look for them, but when I set out on the hike to search for them, I was not certain that my timing was right—it was a bit earlier than I had seen them in past years. I had to walk for several miles to get to this location and initially I could not find any lady’s slippers. Eventually I spotted a single one and was really happy. All of the sudden I started seeing them in multiple spots and was able to capture a variety of images.
I am fascinated by the shape of these flowers and my first instinct was to move in close and capture macro shots to highlight the details of the flower by isolating it from the background, as you can see in the first three images. When it came to groupings of flowers, though, the background could not be eliminated. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because I was “forced” to show the environment in which I found the flowers—I have a tendency to forget to take these kinds of shots in my zeal to zoom in. As it turns out, the last image is one of my favorites, though I must admit that the first image in my absolute favorite of these photos.
The rain has stopped for now, but some raindrops remain, sparkling like tiny jewels this morning on the bearded irises in the garden of my neighbor and fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. I tried to get creative with the framing of the first shot, with a blurred iris in the background of an unopened bud.
In the second shot, I was so close to the bearded iris that you almost can’t tell that the primary subject is a flower—I love my macro lenses. There third and fourth shows show a couple more varieties of irises that are currently in bloom in Cindy’s garden, with lots more still to come.
What is the most unusual-looking flower that you have ever seen? For me, it would probably be the Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema sikokianum). There is something so alien and exotic about this plant that it stopped me in my tracks when I first spotted it last year in early May at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia. Check out my posting from last year if you would like more details of my first encounter with this plant species.
On Thursday I made a trip the botanical gardens with my friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. She was interested in photographing the tulips, peonies, and other flowers, but I made a beeline for the area where I had seen the Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit last year. Initially I could not find any, but I asked several of the folks working in the garden beds and one of the walked me to an area where there were two plants that were well past their prime.
As we were talking, another gardener overheard us and noted that she had spotted one further up the trail earlier in the week. I walked really slowly and looked carefully and eventually found the correct spot—there was one wilted Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit and one in bloom. The two photos below give you a sense of the beauty of this unusual plant. As you can probably tell, I varied the settings on my camera to give a different feel to each of the images. Although the first image provides a clearer view of the entire plant, I really like the moody feel of the second shot.
The Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit is closely related to the Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), which is supposed to be common to the eastern United States, though I have never seen one. The American species looks fairly similar to the Japanese variant, but the spadix, the part that is the “Jack” in the name, is darker in color and the pitcher more closely matches the leaves. If you want to see a beautiful photo of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit growing wild in New England, check out this blog posting by fellow photographer Steve Gingold.
Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) are strange plants. Most of the time they grow in colonies and each plant has a stalk and a single umbrella-shaped leaf. Occasionally, though, the stem will branch off and there will be two leaves. In those cases, a single flower may emerge at the intersection of the two branches of the stem.
According to the Wisconsin Horticulture website, “The nodding, white to rose-colored flowers appear in April or May. Each flower is 2-3 inches wide, with 6 light green sepals, 6 to 9 waxy petals, and twice as many stamens with white filaments and yellow anthers. Although the flowers are quite showy, they are short-lived and usually hidden by the leaves. The flowers are fragrant, variously described as pleasant to putrid and are visited by bumblebees and other long-tongued bees.”
Yesterday I spotted a flowering Mayapple plant as I was exploring the area surrounding a creek in Prince William County, Virginia. I have been seeing Mayapple plants for the last couple of weeks as I have been searching for dragonflies, but this is the first one that I have seen in bloom this spring. You have to get pretty low to the ground to spot the flowers, and it was a bit of a challenge getting this shot.
There is something whimsical about a flower that has its own dual umbrella to provide it with shade—I can’t help but smile whenever I spot a Mayapple in bloom.
Early spring wildflowers, like the Virginia Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica), are an important source of food for a host of small bees and other insects. Many insects gather pollen from these flowers and in doing so help to pollinate the plants.
Some species of bees, though, lack scopa (the pollen-collecting hairs) and do not collect pollen to feed their offspring. The genus Nomada, according to Wikipedia, is the largest genus of kleptoparasitic bees sometimes referred to as “cuckoo bees.” Kleptoparasitic bees are so named because they enter the nests of a host and lay eggs there, stealing resources that the host has already collected.
It is a little hard to see the body of the bee in the photo below, but if you look closely you can see its striped abdomen, which is wasp-like in appearance. I was not sure of the type of bee, so I posted it to BugGuide, a useful resource for insect identification, and one of the experts there identified the bee as belonging to the genus Nomada.
Yesterday I stopped by the garden of my neighbor and fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. Her early-season tulips were well beyond their prime, but more tulips are getting ready to bloom. I was a little surprised to see that some of her irises are already starting to bloom too. I love to photograph flowers when they are at this stage of growth—they are already beautiful and give hints of the additional beauty that is to come.
Happy Easter to all of you who are celebrating this holy day. Christ is risen!
Raindrops were glistening in the sunlight after an April shower on Saturday, enhancing the beauty of these red tulips in the garden of my dear friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer.
One of my favorite movies when I was growing up was “The Sound of Music” and I can still remember the words of many of the songs from the movie. In one delightful scene, Julie Andrews tells the children that when she is unhappy, she tries to think of nice things and begins a song with the words, “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…these are a few of my favorite things.”
Raindrops seem almost magical, whether they are on roses, on tulips, or on any other vegetation. If you are not familiar with the song “My Favorite Things,” here is a link to a YouTube clip of that wonderful scene from “The Sound of Music.”
Flowers are starting to bloom in the garden of my dear friend and fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. Yesterday I photographed several varieties of tulips and some cute little grape hyacinths.
As many of you know, I do not have my own garden. However, my photography mentor Cindy Dyer lives nearby and she has amazing gardens in her front, side, and back yards. She generally plants flowers that she knows are photogenic and I know that during the growing season that there will almost always be something to photograph.
Earlier this spring, I was able to photograph a few crocuses and a tiny red tulip, but now a whole lot more flowers are starting to appear. The multi-colored tulip in the first photo, I believe, is a variety known as the Lady Jane tulip (Tulipa clusiana var. ‘Lady Jane’). In the past, this tulip stood much taller—this one was growing close to the ground.
The red tulip in the second photo is a more traditional variety. I deliberately set my camera to have a shallow depth of field to blur out the background that at this time of the year is somewhat patchy and cluttered. As I processed the photos on my computer I noticed that I had inadvertently captured a shot of my first insect of the season, what Cindy likes to call a “bonus bug.” The weather yesterday was cloudy, so I did not have to worry about harsh shadows, which meant that the colors seemed especially vibrant and saturated.
The final photo shows a tiny grape hyacinth (g. Muscari), one of many that have popped up in Cindy’s garden. These colorful little flowers grow really close to the ground, so I was sprawled out a bit to get this low-angle shot that isolated the flower from the background.
Although the weather the past few days has been cold and windy, it is beginning to look a lot like spring. Some trees have already started to blossom and pops of color are appearing in the front yards of many of my neighbors. In Washington D.C., the cherry blossoms are forecast to reach their peak flowering phase next week.
Yesterday I took my camera with me during a short walk through my neighborhood. Rather than toting the long telephoto zoom lens that I use to photograph birds, I carried the much lighter 60mm macro lens. When I am photographing flowers, I usually try to get up close to them in order to capture the maximum amount of detail.
I spotted some small daffodils adjacent to the steps of my next-door neighbor and stopped to photograph them. Daffodils are probably the most prominent flowers at this moment and I have seen them in multiple sizes and shades of yellow, including some two-toned ones.
I next visited the front garden of fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. I was delighted to spot a few Spring Snowflakes (Leucojum vernum) in bloom. I used to have trouble distinguishing between snowdrop and snowflake flowers, but now I know that the ones with the green spots on each petal are snowflakes.
The last flower that I photographed in Cindy’s garden was a bright red tulip. This tulip was small and was not as showy as some of the other varieties that will appear in the coming weeks, but it seemed especially beautiful. It was the only tulip in bloom and did not have to share the stage with any of its siblings.
Those of you who see my photos regularly will definitely notice that these are not my “normal” shots. It is good, I think, to switch things up periodically and point my camera at some different subjects.
Spring is almost here. This past weekend I spotted the first spring flowers—blooming in the garden of my friend and fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. Longtime readers of this blog are well aware that I am not a gardener, but often visit the Cindy’s garden during the flower season—Cindy deliberately plants flowers that are fun to photograph.
The first crocuses that I spotted were some purplish ones that in Cindy’s front garden. These are the type of crocuses that I encounter most frequently and I associate them with the arrival of spring. When I posted a photo of one on Facebook, Cindy alerted me to the fact that several yellow ones were blooming in her backyard garden.
I don’t recall ever having seem yellow crocuses before, so I was delighted to see them. I was really awkward trying to get a shot of them, so I resorted to getting a relatively close-up shot with my 60mm macro lens.
I have also noticed clusters of cheery yellow daffodils in bloom throughout my neighborhood. Our weather is still variable, but spring is on the way. On a side note, next Sunday we begin Daylight Savings Time, yet another sign of the changing seasons. If I am not mistaken, Europeans do not change their clocks until the last Sunday in March, which is 26 March in 2023.
Although it may seem a little strange to make a trip to a garden to photograph flowers, I set off for Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historic garden last Friday. I suspected that snowdrops (g. Galanthus) would be in bloom and I was not disappointed. I spotted several large clusters of these small white flowers scattered throughout the garden beds.
Some years you can find snowdrops peeking out of a covering of snow, but we have not yet had any snow this winter. Instead I found the snowdrops poking out of the reddish-brown ground cover of fallen leaves and pine needles. I did not have my macro lens with me, but managed to get some decent close-up shots with my Tamron 18-400mm lens as well as an overview of one of the patches of snowdrops that I encountered.
When spring comes, I hope to see the somewhat similar-looking snowflake flower (g. Leucojum). The way that I usually tell them apart is to look at the individual petals. The snowdrop petals are pure white, but the petal of each of the snowflake flowers has a little green dot.
I haven’t seen an American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) for quite some time, so I was happy when I spotted this one last Friday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The vegetation was mostly dried-out, but the goldfinch had no problem finding lots of little seeds. I love the way that the dull colors of the goldfinch were a match for those of the seed heads that surrounded the little bird.
As I approached a patch of thistle in bloom on Tuesday, I was looking carefully to see if there were any butterflies feeding on the flowers. Suddenly I noticed a flash of bright red and realized immediately that it was a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe).
Hummingbird Clearwing moths, which actually do resemble hummingbirds as they dart among the flowers, hovering periodically to such nectar, are not exactly rare where I live, but I tend to see them only a few times a year. Fortunately I reacted quickly enough to capture this image, because the moth flew out of sight after it had finished feeding on this flower.
For shots like this, the wing position is really important and I was thrilled that I was able to capture the wings fully extended, which highlights the transparent portions of the wing responsible the common name of this species. The details of the moth and the thistle are pretty sharp and the background is blurred enough that it is not a distraction—I like this shot a lot.
I am still learning to take videos with my iPhone 11. During my recent road trip, I convinced myself that it could be used with large subjects like bison and wild horses. I wasn’t sure, however, if it could be used effectively with the small subjects that I enjoy photographing.
Yesterday I visited Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, my favorite local wildlife photography spot, and kept my iPhone in my front pants pocket—normally I keep it in my backpack, which it is much less accessible. I was still using my Canon 7D with the Tamron 18-400mm zoom lens most of the time, but I made a conscious effort to look for subjects that I could also film with my iPhone.
I was astonished when I encountered a relatively cooperative Zebra Swallowtail butterfly (Eurytides marcellus). Normally these butterflies are extremely skittish and it is a challenge to get a photo of one, even with a long telephoto lens. How could I make a video of one when I would have to be really close to it?
The first video, which is hosted in YouTube, is a short clip I was able to capture of a Zebra Swallowtail. I added a piano track as accompaniment to enhance the experience.
The second video features an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus) feeding on a colorful thistle plant. This video was a bit easier to capture, because the butterfly was perched much higher and was really preoccupied. I was therefore able to frame the video much better. Once again I added piano music to the video, using the copyright free music available in the YouTube Studio.
As I mentioned in a previous posting, I have chosen to embed YouTube links to the videos rather than place them directly in my blog, where they would count against the blog’s data limits. In order to have an image appear for this posting in the Reader section of WordPress, I have reprised an image of a Zebra Swallowtail that was in a May 2022 posting.
I am having fun playing with videos and think they give a slightly different perspective to my normal blog postings. What do you think? Do you enjoy these kinds of short video clips?
Goldenrod was in full bloom on Wednesday at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge, attracting all kinds of insects, including a little Skipper butterfly and a colorfully-patterned Ailanthus Webworm moth (Atteva aurea). I believe that the butterfly is a Sachem Skipper (Atalopedes campestris), although it is hard to be confident when identifying skipper butterflies—there are quite a number of similar looking species.
I love the intricate orange, black, and white pattern on the body of the Ailanthus Webworm moth, a type of ermine moth. This moth looks quite a bit like a beetle when it is at rest with its wings tucked in, but reportedly it looks like a wasp when in flight. I encourage you to click on the image to get a better look at the wonderful details of the two insects.
When I composed this image, I was conscious of the fact that my primary subject, which was initially the skipper, filled only a small part of the frame. However, I really liked the brilliant yellow of the goldenrod and framed the shot to focus viewers’ attention as much on the sweeping curve and color of the goldenrod as on the insects. The goldenrod became the co-star of the photo and therefore has equal billing in the title of this blog posting.
Yesterday I visited Mount Rainier National Park in Washington State. The namesake mountain is one of the most prominent features of the park and it is a real challenge trying to figure out a creative way to capture the beauty of the snow-covered mountain.
Different vantage points and different altitudes give you different views of the mountain. I also played around a bit with aspect ratios too.
I was particularly delighted to see that some of the wildflowers were still in bloom and the first photo is one of my favorites. I worked hard to frame the composition with the flowers in the foreground. The fact that all three of these photos were taken with my iPhone 11 meant that almost the entire image in focus. It would have been a bit of a challenge to get that kind of depth of field with my DSLR.
I took the second shot from much lower on the mountain. I love the way that the image is almost abstract, reduced to shapes of the mountain and the trees.
The final image is a panoramic-type shot, which somehow seems suitable for the sweeping mountain views. It is a cropped version of a “normal” photo in which I tried to emphasize the mountains—too much of the original image was taken up by sky.
I may have some more images of Mount Rainier to share with you when I go through my images from my DSLR, but I have to say that I am more than happy with these images from my iPhone.
Normally I try to do a posting to my blog every day, but for the next three weeks my posting schedule will be much more erratic. I am in the final stages of packing my car for a trip to visit my son and his family outside of Seattle, Washington. There are multiple decision points along the way and I have not yet decided on my final route, but no matter how I go, it is likely to be about 3,000 miles (4828 km) each way.
I have some camping gear with me, including a water jug that holds six gallon (23 liter), so I may well be spending some time disconnected from the virtual world. I’ll try to take some photos along the way and will share them when I am able.
I am leaving you with a shot of a pretty little butterfly, which I think is a Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos) perched on some Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa). I love the different shades of orange in the image.
In case some of you do not know it, my KIA Soul, in which I am driving out West, is orange in color. It is a coppery orange and not a pumpkin orange and it definitely stands out in a parking lot. My license plate holder has SOUL on it and my license plate itself is “BLESS MY.”
I am attaching a couple of photos of my car from January 2016, after a big snow storm. So many of us throughout the Northern Hemisphere are suffering from oppressive heat and I thought that the sight of snow might cool us off a little. I’ll close with a joke that I say on-line today that is a perfect fit for my quirky sense of humor—”Just be thankful that it is not snowing. Imagine shoveling snow in this heat!”
I have not yet made it to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens this year, so I was especially happy to see that a dozen or so lotuses were in bloom last week at Green Spring Gardens. Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington D.C. is a National Park Service site with several dozen ponds with a variety of water lilies and lotuses—it is the go-to place in my area to see this kind of aquatic vegetation.
However, I am pretty content with the smaller selection at Green Spring Gardens, which is only a couple of miles from my home. Every time that I see lotuses, I am faced with the dilemma of how to photograph them. Should I try to get a group shot or should I photograph a single flower? Should I try to capture an image of a whole flower or of some of its parts? When I am trying to photographic birds and insects, I usually do not have the luxury of thinking about all of these compositional considerations, so it feels a little strange to be so intentional when photographing flowers.
Here are three photos from my outing that day that represent several different ways that I approached my subject. The first image is a kind of traditional portrait of a lotus that I took when the sun had slipped behind the clouds and softened the harshness of the light. For the second shot, I moved in closer and focused on the center of a lotus, creating an image that simultaneously realistic and abstract. For the final photo, I moved even closer and tried to emphasize the texture of a lotus leaf and all of its interlocking veins.
It’s fun to play around with my camera and try some different creative approaches that I do not regularly use in photographing wildlife.
Have a wonderful weekend and consider trying a new approach to something you regularly do. It may not necessarily work, but it will undoubtedly be fun.
I love the way that this acrobatic bee was able to position its antennae for optimized access to the nectar in this bee balm flower last Friday at Green Spring Gardens. The bee was so focused on the flower that it paid me no attention, allowing me to get really close to it to capture this image.
I believe that the bee is an Eastern Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa virginica). As for the flower, there was quite a variety of flowers in different colors that looked like this one. I think that it is a type of bee balm (g. Monarda), though I really do not know flowers very well.
I was absolutely thrilled on Wednesday when I streaks of bright yellow flashed in front of my eyes while walking among the flowers at Green Spring Gardens—goldfinches were present. Few other birds in my area can match the brilliant yellow color of the male American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) in breeding plumage. It is easy to spot these birds, but it is a challenge to photograph them, because they are small, fast, and skittish.
My camera was equipped with my 180mm macro, which can also serve as a short telephoto lens, so I had to use all of my stalking skills to get as close as possible. Fortunately, the goldfinches were preoccupied with feeding and I was able to capture these images. I had to be quite patient, though, because the goldfinches spent most of their time with their heads buried in the flowers and only rarely gave me a good view of their faces
Together with the goldfinches, the abundance of blooming flowers helped me to create images that have a happy feel to them, a welcome antidote to the gloom of these troubled times.
I noticed on Friday that quite a few milkweed plants are now in bloom at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Hopefully they will attract some Monarch butterflies. In the meantime, I was happy to see this Red Milkweed Beetle (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus) with its cool “longhorn” antennae.
Over ten years ago, I encountered these strange-looking insects for the first time and was utterly fascinated by their appearance. That fascination has not diminished over time. Milkweed plants are amazing hosts to a wonderful variety of insects and it is always fun to examine them closely.
I was a pretty good distance away from this beetle, so I was not able to get a close-up shot of it, so settled for a shot that included a bit of the milkweed. I really like the resulting image, a reminder to myself that the primary subject does not necessarily have to fill the frame for a photo to be effective.
If you want a better view of a Red Milkweed Beetle, check out my June 2013 posting entitled “Red Milkweed Beetle—he’s back.”
We have had rain and clouds the last few days and I feel the need for a pop of color today. This blanket flower (g. Gaillardia) provided a wonderfully colorful backdrop for a little bee that I spotted during a recent trip to Green Spring Gardens. I think that it may be some kind of sweat bee, but I did not get a close enough look at it to be able identify it.
There was only one water lily in bloom last week at Green Spring Gardens—it did not have to share the spotlight with any other floating flowers. In some ways, its uniqueness made it even even more special. I love water lilies, but it may be a bit early for them to be blooming, at least at this pond.
As I was looking through my camera’s viewfinder, trying to think of an interesting way to photograph the single water lily, I spotted a tiny hover fly making a beeline for the center of the water lily. I reacted quickly and frantically clicked away. In most of my shots, the hover fly was out of focus, but my luck and timing allowed me to capture the first image below, in which the little insect is in relatively sharp focus—click on the image to get a closer look at the patterns on the hover fly’s body.
I realize that some viewers may prefer to enjoy the beauty of a flower without having to see insects, so I have added a second shot of the water lily that I took from a slightly different angle. No matter which image you prefer, I am confident that you will agree that the water lily is stunning—I love the way that the center of the flower seems to glow.
I never know what will catch my eye when my camera is in my hand. On Monday, for example, I spotted these tiny, colorful flowers while hunting for dragonflies at Occoquan Regional Park. The blue one is a type of blue-eyed grass (g. Sisyrinchium), but I can’t identify the pretty pink one.
I am not a gardener, so I never learned to differentiate between flowers and weeds—they are all flowers to me. I find the names of plant species to be confusing at times. Blue-eyed grass, for example, is not actually a grass, but a perennial related to the iris, and it comes in multiple colors. Yikes!
The good news is that my lack of knowledge about plants does not keep me from enjoying fully the beauty of these tiny flowers. To borrow a line from Shakespeare, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”
If you recognize the pink flower and can identify it, please let me know what it is. Ten years ago I could not identify a single dragonfly, but over time I have learned a lot about them. There is hope, therefore, that I will similarly expand my knowledge of flowers as I encounter and photograph them.
UPDATE: Thanks to Steve Gingold, I now know that the pink flower is a Deptford Pink (Dianthus armeria), a plant species native to Europe that is naturalized in much of North America. Be sure to check out Steve’s blog for lots of wonderful nature images and a wealth of information about plants, insects, and other aspects of nature, especially in Western New England, where he lives.
Lilies are now blooming in the garden of my neighbor, Cindy Dyer, who is also my photography mentor and muse. There are all kind of lilies there, including daylilies, Asiatic lilies, and giant white ones. Cindy deliberately likes to plant flowers that she knows will be photogenic.
I always feel overwhelmed when trying to photograph groups of anything, so I naturally gravitate to close-ups of individual flowers, focusing in on details that grab my eyes. Sometimes it is shapes, while at other times it may be colors or textures. Here are a few photos from my visit on Tuesday to Cindy’s garden, my impressions of some of the beautiful lilies that I encountered.
I love the triangular shape of Spiderwort plants (genus Tradescantia). I tend to think of spiderworts as being a bluish-purple in color, but was delighted to discover them blooming in a variety of colors during a recent visit to Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historical garden near where I live. I think my favorite color combination may be the one in the middle photo, with the white flowers and the purple “fuzz” in the center.
During a recent trip to Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historic garden near where I live, I was delighted to see that Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) was in bloom. Love-in-a-mist is a flower that looks like it came from outer space, with wild tendrils shooting out of its middle and green spiky vegetation surrounding it. Like many forms of love, the flower simultaneously looks to be both inviting and threatening.
I find this flower to be incredibly beautiful and exotic and it is one of my favorites. Typically Love-in-a-mist is blue, but it also comes in shades of white, pink, and lavender. Many flowers lose our interest after they have bloomed, but I find the seedpods of Love-in-a-mist to at least as intriguing as the flower itself, as you can see in the final photo.
When I did a little research I learned that the striped, balloon-shaped object that I call a seedpod, is actually an inflated capsule composed of five fused true seedpods, according to an article by Wisconsin Horticulture. I also discovered that the thorny-looking spikes that make up the “mist,” which are not sharp, despite their appearance, are technically bracts, a specialized kind of leaves.
I smile whenever I use the name of this flower—we can always use more Love, whether it comes in a mist, in the sunshine, or even in a downpour.
Mike Powell 