Month: December 2014

Friday Floral – Devil’s Tongue Barrel

Published on by tbeckerphotos3 Comments

Devil’s Tongue Barrel (Ferocactus latispinus) is this week’s Friday Floral topic.  Flowers are my favorite macro photography subject and recently, while wanting to photograph more Paper Whites, I came across this cactus blooming at the Desert Botanical Garden.  Also known as Crow’s Claw Cactus, it is native to the southern U.S. and Central Mexico. This species blooms in winter with flowers that are pinkish purple or yellow.  For the cactus to bloom it needs sunshine and the flowers are 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter (2.5 cm to 3.5 cm).  Due to the strong sidelight, the background was quite dark and with some minor burning in Lightroom, I was able to make it completely black.  What I enjoy about macro photography is I can always find something to photograph, whether it be Devil’s Tongue Barrel cactus flowers for a Friday Floral post, or an abstract image, I can photograph all day in any light.

devil's tongue barrel cactus with pinkish purple blooms
Devil’s Tongue Barrel Cactus – click on the image to view a high resolution image or to purchase a print.

Friday Floral – Plan B

Published on by tbeckerphotos2 Comments

This week’s Friday Floral post is Plan B for poinsettias and raindrops, perfect macro photography subjects. The images I had made the night before of poinsettias with raindrops  had too much noise, but I couldn’t get them out of my head.  I needed and wanted to try again.  Wanting to make some quality images, I decided to go to the Desert Botanical Garden.  It had rained again during the day and I was hopeful to recreate the scene from the night before.  It was late afternoon and the light was completely different.  Would I be able make the images I was visualizing?

Upon arrival and walking to the entrance there were several beautiful poinsettias.  They looked like they had clear jewels or diamonds scattered on them, obviously, I was fixated on the scene from the night before. That would be strange for the garden to do was my first thought.  Getting closer I realized it wasn’t jewels or diamonds, but very large raindrops!  The raindrops didn’t look like rubies that I was hoping for, but these were just as beautiful.  To try to recreate the images from the night before, staying until long after sunset would be necessary.  Too much going on this time of year, so that wasn’t an option.  I haven’t given up on photographing poinsettias with raindrops looking like rubies, Plan C is always an option and rain is in the forecast this weekend!