Cactus Blooms – Page 2 – Different Isn't Wrong, It's Just Different

Recently my night blooming cactus had seven blooms that opened all on the same night. Well at least three of them opened and the other four only half opened. It wasn’t the Flying Saucer that I had hoped for, but still beautiful. The second morning after they opened, when I went outside, the blooms were still open! Usually they wilt after the first day, what a surprise! And the four that were only half open the day before, had opened even more.

The sun was already quite high as it was three hours after sunrise. I quickly went inside and grabbed all my gear. Once again, I moved the container. This time instead of a sunny area, I chose an area that was lightly shaded but would still be able to reflect the sun with my reflector. The background was now too bright and took away from the blooms. Going back inside I grabbed a black apron my husband wears for work. I chose his apron over my black reflector because the fabric is matte whereas my reflector has a slight sheen which might have reflected unwanted light.

I was excited that the pistols had opened more and looked as if they were coated with sugar. That is my favorite part of the bloom of the night blooming cactus and I made a few close images. After shooting for about 45 minutes, the sun was now so high a diffuser would be needed or moving the container once again and, as it is rather heavy, I chose to stop. Below is a gallery of images from the second day of pink explosion!

They opened! My night blooming cactus bloomed last night much to my surprise. I thought it would be another day or two, but I decided to go out and check about 9 p.m. and three had started to open. So much for trying time-lapse, I was too late. But with four more blooms to open, another chance would be possible, so I thought. I immediately went in and brought my camera and tripod to make a few images. Thinking they would open rather quickly, I left camera outside while I was working on another project inside.

Every so often I would go back out and check on the progress. This second image was taken almost an hour later than the first image. They were opening much slower than expected. But the biggest surprise was when I checked on them at about 10:30 or 11:00 and noticed that the other four blooms had started to open. The possibility of trying time-lapse was now gone. At least for now. I finally decided to call it a night about midnight and set my alarm for 5:25 a.m.

This morning my alarm went off and I had little trouble getting up even though it had been a short night or was it a very long nap? I pulled on a lightweight sweatshirt and grabbed my camera and tripod. A sweatshirt? Yes, we are having three days of high temps in the 80’s making the early morning temps down into the hight 50’s or low 60’s. A great break from the 100’s we had over the weekend.

I started out shooting just before sunrise and the light was very cool. Not my favorite light for macro, but started shooting anyway. I made several images and then decided to move the container to where it would be in the warm sunlight once the sun was high enough to be over our block wall. This image as well as the next image were taken before I moved the container.

For some reason the four blooms that started to open very late, did not fully open. I was quite disappointed when seeing they were only open halfway. Strange how nature works sometimes.

Once the sun was high enough there were a few clouds in the way. One of the few times I wasn’t happy with clouds. I waited for the sun to rise above the clouds and started shooting away. Even though I was able to place the container in any direction to manipulate the light, I still used my reflector. I just can’t get enough of the warm light you can bring into an image with a gold reflector. I had to work fast as the sun was quickly rising.