Bulbophyllum breviscapum aka lasiochilum, hard to photograph

[Ricardo in PR]

Because of my modest level of photographing skills, taking a good photo of this orchid has proven a vexing challenge. The flower has so many folds, bends, waxy twisted and shiny parts sticking everywhich way that no matter what I do some part comes in the shade or overexposed or out of focus. And don't get me started on the hairs of the hinged lip, if I try to get in focus those the other parts look blurry. So I took a side photo that maybe is not that great but highlight most of the interesting bits of this exotic, otherworldy looking flower. Oh, yes, yes I know about f-stops and tripods and light exposure and stuff, but macro photography is tricky, hopefully I will get better at it.

[Kathy-WPalmBeach]

Looks crisp and detailed to me! An amazing flower!

[Ricardo in PR]

Thank you for your kind words. It not a totally bad photo but when I see some of the stunningly detailed and crisply focused macro photos on some of the Internet forums I yearn to take photos like those. Perhaps in time and after taking a few hundred thousands of photos I will get a better handle of macro photography. However I am starting to think that some of the best ones owe their startling quality to the application of some judicious tweaking with image managing programs.

[Marci in SoFL]

To echo Kim, your photo looks crisp and detailed to me as well. Very cool capture of an intriguing flower. Is it one to be admired with a clothespin on the nose? :

[Ricardo in PR]

I tried to smell the flower and detected a slight sweet fragrance, however since there is a Stanhopea panamensis and a Brassia Rex nearby both flooding the area with their fragrances I am not sure it came from the Bulbophyllum flower. Also the fact that I have a cold doesn't help with my fragrance detection skills. Anyway, if it has an offensive smell I have never detected it. Even if it indeed has a putrid smell it clearly isn't in the roadkill rat left to fester in the sun league of Bulb, echinolabium.

[raybark]