The exotic Dactylorhiza umbrosa I bought last month has now bloomed, and what a fabulous flower it is.
As befits a real star I used a bit of lash! Specifically three off camera flashes and a white background (a small white box) with a 105mm macro lens to really highlight the detail of the flowers and the long elegant bracts.
While some of the highlights have blown I am quite pleased with the results. What I really want to try, once the flower is in full bloom, in a couple of days, is to use the full size lightbox at work (usuallu used for taking pictures of decidedly less beautiful lumps of recycled plastic) and try to capture the whole plant under colour corrected daylight bulbs. But this was quite a good result.
Unfortunately I have no other Dacts (or even orchids...) flowering at the moment to try to cross polinate and create a hybrid. I will try to hand pollinate to see if i can get some seed however!
Chris take some of the pollen from it and place it in the freezer. When the other Dacts are flowering take the pollen out of the freezer and pollinate them.
Posted by: Neil | 05/22/2012 at 06:09 PM