night blooming cactus – Different Isn't Wrong, It's Just Different

pink-cactus-flower-6254 Last year my night blooming cactus had seven blooms and exploded in pink and they opened on May 7th. This year there is only one bloom and it finally opened last night. With only one cactus flower this year, it would be a challenge to come up with several compositions (there will be a gallery at the end of the post and you may click on any of the images to see a larger view). How many compositions?

I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. in order to photograph this one flower during the golden hour. My alarm went off and I hit the snooze button and then hit it again. A couple of minutes after hitting the snooze for the second time, I arose and looked out the window to see a complete overcast sky. Not the light I was hoping for but it looked like mother nature would be providing a soft box for several hours. With this in mind I went back to bed for about an hour. Then outside I went with my camera, tripod, reflector and speedlight.

pink-cactus-flower-9443 — Pink cactus flower using only available light.

The first few images I made with only available light and was not satisfied. My next thought was to use my speedlight off camera. As I rarely use it, I do not have a wireless transmitter to trigger the flash off-camera such as a Pocket Wizard. Instead, I use an off-camera shoe cord that attaches to the hotshoe on my DSLR and to the speed light. I know this is a bit technical, but thought it was important to share. I didn’t like how those images turned out either. So then it was time to attach my speedlight to my DSLR, turn the head to the side so that I could bounce the light from the flash off my gold reflector in order to create a warm sidelight. pink-cactus-flower-9427 I held my gold reflector above and to the left of the cactus flower. Success! I learned how to do this while reading The Hot Show Diaries by Joe McNally.

As my cactus is in a terra-cotta pot, it can be moved to obtain different light and/or background. We have a small area of grass in our backyard and wondered how it would look as a background. The images (in the gallery below) certainly have a different feel to them. Now that there was more room to move around the pot, more compositions were coming to mind. Some of the images are quite close and only a portion of the flower is in the images. By now the clouds were breaking up, but the sun still wasn’t able to breakthrough. I went inside for about an hour until the sun was shining. However, it was now too high and the light was harsh. Time to move the cactus back into the shade. Then using my reflector I was able to bounce light onto the cactus flower without using my speedlight. The last two images in the gallery are the same composition, however, the light is different. In the second to last image I held my gold reflector above and to the left of the cactus flower creating warm sidelight. The final image the light is coming from behind the cactus flower without moving the pot. Instead, I held my gold reflector above and behind the cactus flower to create backlight. And the gray background? That is the rock in our yard which normally doesn’t look gray, but with sidelight and backlight it looks much darker. How many compositions? There are 11 different compositions in the gallery below, but with the use of flash and holding my reflector in different positions, 13 images are shown.

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.