Tag Archives: orchid

Photography

Pink Lady’s Slipper

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I am not much into photographing wildflowers. I do have a soft spot for Orchids. One such Orchid is the Pink Lady Slipper that is also known as the Moccasin Flower. They are found in mixed or coniferous forest that is moist and shady. I usually come across this Orchid  when I am hiking along trails in Killarney provincial Park  in June. For more info on the Pink Lady’s Slipper check out Andy’s Northern Ontario Wildflower website.

http://www.ontariowildflower.com/pine_forest.htm#ladyslipperp

To make the flower itself stand out I used a technique found in Scott Kelby‘s Adobe Photoshop CS6 book for digital photographers.

I started by processing the photo as I would normally do. Then I would flatten the layers and save the file as a Tiff. This allows me to go back into Camera Raw. Once in Camera Raw get the adjustment brush. Drag the exposure slider all the way to the left. The shadow slider can be dragged all the way to the left to made things even darker. I did not move the shadow slider as I still wanted to see some habitat. Click on the erase button. Set your brush size to what you want. In this case I wanted to show the flower.  Set the feather ( softness) to 90. Then click once over the area you want lit with a soft spotlight like you see in the above photo. You are revealing the image in that one spot by erasing the darkness.

Well that is it for this week. Thank you for stopping by. A wonderful Happy Valentine’s Day to all the wonderful ladies out there.So until next week happy trails

 

 

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Photography

The Showy Lady Slipper

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This past weekend I traveled over to Manitoulin Island to spend the weekend visiting my Mother.While I was there I decided to do some exploring to see if I could find some Showy Lady Slippers to photograph.Jumping into my Ford Explorer I headed out to search for these beautiful Orchids.Mom had told me where we use to find them many years ago.

Upon arrival I found them growing by the hundreds in the area mentioned by my Mother.Unloading my camera equipment I set out to search for some suitable subjects.The first thing I noticed was the flowers had faded in color.I appears that I was a week too late.Searching around I discovered that there were still a few in full color.I was able to the capture the above set of Showy Lady Slippers in a group of four.

I discovered this single Showy Lady Slipper all by itself with an uncluttered background.When you see these Orchids you are enthralled by there size and color.Needless to say they are beautiful.

The Showy Lady Slipper inhabits wet lands and open wooded swamps.This is not a common plant and has vanishing from its historic range.Manitoulin is the only place that I am familiar with this Orchid.I have never seen them in Northern Ontario

Well that is it for this week so happy trails