This week in west Michigan has been snowy and cold. Last night I threw a glass of water (not the glass itself of course) into the air and it came down as ice pellets. In all the cold winters we have here in Michigan we have in our bathroom somewhat of an enigma. We have this orchid (orchidaceae for you botanical freaks) that continues to grow in an octagonal window our bathroom. It does not bloom very often but when it does it is nothing but amazing.
We have been waiting all week for these buds to pop and they started to the other day. I had a great opportunity this morning to catch a combination of life, light, and juxtaposition. Yes folks those are icicles hanging from our roof with a blooming orchid (no we do not keep our house in the 80's during winter.)
The Shot
With this side of the house facing east and a low sun I did not have all day to get the sunlight hitting the icicles. It was a perfect opportunity for me to try out some new lighting gear as I did not want to generate shadows in such close quarters. The spec on the shot are this; Canon 5D Mk II with an EF 24-105 f/4L IS USM lens. ISO was set to 200, the lens was at 96 mm. With this lens I knew I was not going to get the best depth of field especially at 96 mm so I ran the aperture up to f/22 and settled on 100th of a second for a shutter speed. The Alien Bees ABR800 ring flash was dialed down to 1/16th power because of the closeness of the flower. I tried a grid in the flash unit and that kind of sucked so I just let the little diffuser disk do it's thing.
So now it is back to lighting. The 110 volt kind in the office.
Cya later... Doug
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1 comment:
hey, that's my orchid. haha. i gave it to mom to nurture back to health after i thought i killed it. Janelle gave it to me when chris and i were having a hard time after he moved. It looks great. This is by far my favorite picture you have taken.
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