On New Year’s Eve, I wasn’t exactly surprised to see that around 9:00PM, my Night Blooming Cereus was starting to open up. From the first sighting of the bud to the final bloom, takes about 10 days. I always know when it’s blooming, not by sight but by smell. The Cereus has a distinctive mild, sweet, aroma. I have always had the belief that my Cereus bloomed at special occasions. Sometimes these occasions are happy and sometimes not. Yet, the Cereus’ flower presents itself at some magical interface. So I look for 2011 being a magical positive year!
These photos were made with my Panasonic LX3. This camera has an incredible macro mode. It’s small and light enough to hand hold in awkward positions. Plus its superb Leica lens is a beautiful piece of glass. yet to make these images I had to use an ISO of 800. I wanted to use a somewhat fast shutter speed to minimize blur and an f/stop that wasn’t wide open. The noise was lowered using Nik Software Define 2.0.
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