Yellow Botanicals

This is another in the series of posts using color as a theme. The yellow flowers include tulips, forsythia, witch hazel, Arizona poppy, daffodils, orchids, alstroemeria, and dandelions….so many beautiful blooms. Enjoy the yellow slide show!

Flower Parts

Flowers are often the most studied part of plants. They are usually colorful and intricate - forged to propagate their kind. I decided to photography the part of an Alstroemeria flower on a recent rainy day. I cut a flower from the bouquet I posted about last Friday and then used several light sources to rearrange the petals. The shape and curvature of the petals are still appealing even when the flower it taken apart. No wonder the botanical prints that were so painstakingly made in the 1800s have such an appeal even today.

I used two different light sources. One gave the flower petals and warm glowing color while the other turned them cool. Which did I prefer? I'm including both in the slide show below because I can't quite decide.

And finally the inner parts of the flower - looking fragile away from their surrounding petals. It is easy to see these as the models for delicate spirals in even our earliest art.

Alstroemeria

There is so little color outdoors in the Maryland winter that I sometimes give in and buy a bouquet of flowers along with my groceries. My favorite is probably alstroemeria. They have a relatively long vase-life (longer than roses).

I put them in a vase on the table and inevitably try macro shorts. The petal markings and venation are easy to capture.

And now I am thinking about whether I want to try planting some in garden in the spring. It may be a bit too cold to leave them in the ground over the winter here in Maryland so I may plant them in pots that I can easily bring indoors.