Pink Hybiscus - Macro Shots

Living in southwest Florida allows for extremely long blooming seasons. There are a wide variety of tropical plants and trees (plus veggies, herbs, etc.) to choose from. Our yard always seems to be a work in progress with the green-thumb-spouse doing 95% of the labor - I know, I suck. The latest addition is a hybiscus (the third) - this one is a bush (hasn't been trained into a decorative tree) and the blooms are pink. Yesterday I was out in the yard taking snaps of different things. Below are some of the more artsy versions of the hybiscus - I would have included a shot of the whole bloom, but I wasn't paying attention and got a bit of shadow crossing the bloom and I didn't feel like going out again for another shot. Besides, this was pretty much an "exercise" in macros.

The above focus zoomed in on the stamem (as it should have), but I really like the vibrant colors coming from the center of the bloom out into their feathery little fans.

In this one (above) I was trying to get a clear shot of the stamen - I am amazed by the brightness of the stamen ... and then I saw the shadow ...

Here's the close-up of the shadow (above). It might just be me, but something about it reminds me of something one might see in a Dr. Seuss story book. hehe.

Here we have a fairly nice shot of the stamin and the brght, feathery center. Even with the bit of stem shadow, I like the composition of this one. I do think that it's a little odd that the focus is on the little yellow pieces and that the orange parts are still slightly out of focus, but I did make one more attempt at a clear shot of the orange bulbus thingies:

Feel free to click on any of the photo's for a larger version. There really is some pretty cool detail on most of the photos.

In case anyone is wondering, I've been using a Canon PowerShot A95. It has up to 5.0 mega pixels and uses compact flash memory cards. The camera has served me well, but lately it has been suffering from some sort of internal confusion - it sometimes shuts off on its own (and I am sure it's not the batteries) and once in a while it makes some pretty creepy grindy sounds. To fix it would cost more than to replace it, so I am asking for a new one for my birthday. Keep your fingers crossed.

One last note - the mango tree and avacado tree have tiny little fruits on them - this is the first year since planted that we just might get some fruit. Pretty exciting.