I love this shot of poinciana blooms backed up by telephone lines swathed in spherical bromeliad plants seeded by the sticky seeds clinging to the feet of birds who perch on them.
Tillandsia Recurvata is the name of this bromeliad often found on telephone lines in my area of Mexico.
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/05/14/flower-of-the-day-may-15-2016-daffodil/
I loved this street scene–with everyone walking right down the middle of the street. Sidewalks in Mexico seem to be used more for sitting, setting up little mom and pop stores and for courtship rituals. Everything else seems to occur in the streets. Cars stop in the middle of the street for their drivers to talk to passing friends, kids play ball there, dogs hobnob, trucks or cars with loudspeakers drive oh so slowly, blasting their news, fruit trucks or gas trucks or water trucks distribute their wares, garbage trucks park while their workers run to neighboring houses to pick up garbage. Construction workers pile huge mountains of sand and brick there, and the recently bereaved erect tents they fill with chairs for mourners, blocking off the entire street. Sometimes it seems as though the passage of traffic is of the least consideration.
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/05/12/flower-of-the-day-may-13-2016-rose/
This is the second flower brought to me by the hummingbird lady. I can’t get over the pattern on the front part of the flower and I’m wondering if it was caused by being wrapped around the pistil. The other part of the flower doesn’t seem to have the pattern on it, so perhaps it was wrapped around it on the outside. I’ve never noticed this in any other flower before and it makes it look artificial, but it isn’t
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/05/10/flower-of-the-day-may-11-2016-bearded-iris/
Even the blandest flower can be spiced up. Take for instance this unspectacular shot of dahlias:
I had decided to throw it away, but instead transferred it to a folder on my desktop that said “Flowers Unused.” It’s where I put things I have considered using in my blog but haven’t—either because I found one I liked better or meant to use but lost on my desktop or ones that I’m just saving. Sometimes I put things there just because I don’t know where else to put them… or they wind up there by accident when they should have gone into the file of photos already used in my blog.
I checked and found it was fair game. I’d never used it in a blog post. On the other hand, it was so unspectacular that I was a bit embarrassed to use it, even when cropped down to a single flower. So, I played around a bit and ended up with this:
Pretty fuzzy, but some interesting shapes, shadows and shades. Still not blogworthy, though, so I played around some more and got this:
and this:
and this:
and finally, this:
All of these photos came from the first photo shown, making use of only cropping, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, saturation, temperature, tint and sharpness settings—the basic tools in the edit function of Photos—the app on Mac that replaced iPhoto. Pretty fun. Like making a tasty new dish from leftovers in the fridge that anyone else would have tossed out.
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/05/09/flower-of-the-day-may-10-2016-bearded-iris/
Sharps, sharps and sharps. The serrated edges of epiphyllum join the puncturing thorns of the bougainvillea and the lacerating coil of razor wire to insure this wall and gate are unscalable. That’s security Mexican style.
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/05/07/flower-of-the-day-may-8-2016-bearded-irises/
Birds of Paradise share center table with baby’s breath and the first papaya of the new tree. Unfortunately, these papayas are not as flavorful and sweet as the papayas were from our last tree. Hope they improve with age.
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/05/05/flower-of-the-day-may-6-2016-bearded-iris/
Royal Poinciana Trees (Flamboyan or Flame Trees)
I posted closeups and flower clusters of this tree for the past two days and now here is the tree itself. I couldn’t decide which pic I liked the best so I chose a few. I love this tree. Messy but gorgeous. Last year the leaf cutter ants pretty much ate all the leaves and flowers but this year it bloomed in all its glory.
(Click on photos to enlarge.)
https://beccagivens.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/sunday-trees-233/
Yesterday I showed individual Royal Poinciana flowers. Today I’m showing clusters and tomorrow I’ll show the entire tree. Some say the African Tulip tree is the most beautiful flowering tree on earth, but I say the Royal Poinciana is.
(Click on images to enlarge)
Do click on these photos to enlarge them. They are so incredible this year! I couldn’t pick just one, so here are four shots of the day. Tomorrow I’ll show the tree.
See also: https://ceenphotography.com/2016/04/29/flower-of-the-day-april-30-2016-bearded-iris/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 