Springtime Flannel Display (B&W)

Springtime Flannel Display (B&W)

This spring must have the very best growing conditions for these wildflowers as this definitely the lushest, healthiest, most striking and prolific flowering Actinotus helianthi (Flannel Flower I have yet seen in my three and a bit years of hunting Australian natives. With so many flowers in full bloom and their faces turned to the bright spring early afternoon sun, their mass display just HAD to be photographed.

The photograph was made at Grant’s Head Nature Reserve, Bonny Hills, south of Port Macquarie, NSW, Australia while on a solo wildflower safari. I almost bumped right into this plant as I wended my way along a heavily overgrown washout that doubles as a track but fortunately no damage was done to me or the flowers.

My first instinct was to select a small group of flowers as a subject but I have almost done that to death but when I stepped back to take in the larger view I was really impressed by this wonderful natural display.

There was only one way I could get the depth of field from using Macro Mode, to render a good clean, clear focus on all the flowers on show and that was to switch to Manual, set the smallest aperture possible, work out the shutter speed and focus on a flower about 1/3 into the display.

I chose to make this conversion to demonstarte just what great B&W subjects these flowers make.

Fuji S9600: RAW, Macro, Manual Settings of f/11 @ 1/160sec, Manual focus, Tripod, Timer.
Lightroom 1.1 & Photoshop CS3.

Visit my Aussie Wildflower collection in my BubbleSite Gallery for more native gems.

Enjoy!

WILDFLOWERS: FLANNEL FLOWERS
(Click the links!)

Actinotus helianthi – Springtime Flannel Display – B&W

Actinotus helianthi – Springtime Flannel Display

Actinotus helianthus – Flannel Flower Lampshades

Actinotus helianthus – Triplets

Actinotus helianthus – Flannel Flowers and Friends

Springtime Flannel Display (B&W) belongs to the following groups:

New South Wales Photography Available for sale as

Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, Laminated Prints, Mounted Prints, Canvas Prints, Framed Prints and Posters