Spotted Coral Root Orchids

[MonikaC]

Corallorhiza maculata. The ones I usually find @8000' didn't do well with the dryness even though they got much more moisture than a few thousand feet lower. I had to go another 1000' higher to find some. These were much taller, being about a foot tall (as opposed to about half that). These were in an aspen grove. On the nearby trail, mountain bikers whizzed by and hikers chatted amongst each other, oblivious to their charms.

 

[AlanLichty]

Beautiful little blooms and a great portrait of them. I love the isolation of the blooms with this processing.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Beautiful Monica. I spent the previous couple of days doing wild flowers and attempting to get this sort of isolation and was not successful. It's not easy.

 

[Douglas Sherman]

Excellent image of these beautiful flowers, Monika. Were you able to get the nice soft background without having to blur it in Photoshop? As an aside: I really like the way you write that is demonstrated in the last sentence.

 

[MonikaC]

Excellent image of these beautiful flowers, Monika. Were you able to get the nice soft background without having to blur it in Photoshop? As an aside: I really like the way you write that is demonstrated in the last sentence.

Thanks, Doug. It was quite the contrast with me being in my own little world sprawled on the aspen grove floor & the busy trail just 8 or 10' away. The background was pretty busy with aspen, other spotted coral root orchids, tree roots, boulders, sunlight that, due to the limitations of maneuvering the shower curtain in an aspen grove, I couldn't adequately mitigate. And I wanted enough depth to get all 3 stems mostly in focus, so the background was blurred in PS.

 

[Douglas Sherman]

Thanks, Doug. It was quite the contrast with me being in my own little world sprawled on the aspen grove floor & the busy trail just 8 or 10' away. The background was pretty busy with aspen, other spotted coral root orchids, tree roots, boulders, sunlight that, due to the limitations of maneuvering the shower curtain in an aspen grove, I couldn't adequately mitigate. And I wanted enough depth to get all 3 stems mostly in focus, so the background was blurred in PS.

Every great wildflower image has an interesting back story, Monika. Great job of mitigating all of the problems.

 

[JimFox]

Wow Monika! What a great find. These look really awesome, great job on the capture.

 

[Jeffrey]

That's wild! Beautiful image, Monika.

 

[Eric Gofreed]

Corallorhiza maculata. The ones I usually find @8000' didn't do well with the dryness even though they got much more moisture than a few thousand feet lower. I had to go another 1000' higher to find some. These were much taller, being about a foot tall (as opposed to about half that). These were in an aspen grove. On the nearby trail, mountain bikers whizzed by and hikers chatted amongst each other, oblivious to their charms.

View attachment 50587

love this shot. Consider posting a portrait photo at 1000 px on the long end so we can see the entire photo

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Lovely image Monika and nice work with background blur.

 

[MonikaC]

love this shot. Consider posting a portrait photo at 1000 px on the long end so we can see the entire photo

I always post at 1440 px on the long end, but I guess there's something else to be done to see it larger.........

 

[MonikaC]

That's wild! Beautiful image, Monika.

love this shot. Consider posting a portrait photo at 1000 px on the long end so we can see the entire photo

Lovely image Monika and nice work with background blur.

Thanks, guys!

 

[Kurt Harrigan]

Very nice! I've never been able to find these myself.....

 

[MonikaC]

Very nice! I've never been able to find these myself.....

You have to look for the thoroughly unimpressive dried out stalk-like things........ The flowers are so small that you pretty much have to have your nose right there.