05.04.2020-2 Strongly lit Trout Lily

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Steve Gingold

Ordinarily I choose to shoot flowers in subdued lighting.  This morning’s singular goal was to photograph more of these with, hopefully, a look at the flowers reproductive organs ( I was going to say genitalia…would that have been okay and should I post PG-13? 🙂 ) But the sun was streaming through the trees in this wooded area so a bit of a lighting challenge. The flower is backlit and I tried to soften the contrasty light with a small reflector and then some dodging in Photoshop.

There are literally hundreds, possibly thousands, of these Trout Lilies-Erythronium americanum spread out on the slope where I was shooting but they are mixed in with Rosa multiflora (a nasty invasive thorny bush)…I painfully had to kneel on some of them… along with trees and other shrubs so no wide view of a landscape filled with flowers as so many of you get to visit elsewhere. The good news is that this is in the Conte Wildlife Refuge lands and the dirt access town road is now closed to traffic so all that dirt and dust usually found on the plants is no longer an issue.

About Steve Gingold

I am a Nature Photographer with interests in all things related. Water, flowers, insects and fungi are my main interests but I am happy to photograph wildlife and landscapes and all other of Nature's subjects.
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26 Responses to 05.04.2020-2 Strongly lit Trout Lily

  1. Michael Scandling says:
    May 4, 2020 at 12:06 pm

    You definitely made the right choice. The intense colors and stark contrast make this a wonderful shot.

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  2. Robert Parker says:
    May 4, 2020 at 12:47 pm

    I love the trout lilies, but that Multiflora rose is a real plague, it’s hard to believe how widespread it’s become. The state forestry and DEC people have been thinning some woods, and not replanting trees in some areas. There’s more browse for the whitetails, and the grouse, quail, etc. love the poplar thickets that pop up, but a lot of the thinned-out areas are now just huge patches of the invasive rose, really dense and impassable, and I’ve never seen evidence that the deer are eating it, unless they just eat the new sprouts. It’s supposed to be even worse, in the Hudson Valley & Catskills. I guess the rabbits, and some songbirds, like having this kind of cover, but it’s clearly too much of a good thing.

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    • Steve Gingold says:
      May 5, 2020 at 5:55 pm

      Years ago I worked with a woman who looked out our lunchroom window at the flowering Rosa multiflora and expressed a desire to cut some and take it home to enjoy the flowers there. I wonder what her yard looks like now. That’s one of the dangers of not researching. I admit to doing that once with spurge. A customer had it in her front yard and offered a cutting. 20 years, or more, later after every effort to dig in the ground with my bare hands and remove the lightest bit of hair root they are still here. Thank goodness we don’t have multiflora although the raspberry canes bite pretty hard too.

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  3. bluebrightly says:
    May 4, 2020 at 2:18 pm

    nInstead of dirt and dust, we have pollen. That’s much better! It’s always fun to see all those grains of pollen on flower petals.

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    • Steve Gingold says:
      May 5, 2020 at 5:58 pm

      Better on the petals than in our noses. 🙂 I say that in empathy as fortunately I have no allergies to this point in my life. I’d like to think bees are responsible for the fallen grains rather than gravity.

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  4. Steve Schwartzman says:
    May 4, 2020 at 4:42 pm

    I like the “parallel” arcs, one brown, the other green for part of its length turning to gray for the rest.

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  5. susurrus says:
    May 4, 2020 at 5:01 pm

    I hope the thorns are not still with you. I have a habit of accidentally ‘collecting’ one or two any time I go near a rose.

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  6. M.B. Henry says:
    May 4, 2020 at 5:19 pm

    Beautiful – just love that coloring

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  7. Eliza Waters says:
    May 4, 2020 at 9:17 pm

    I’ve been enjoying the few we have here, but the season is way too short!

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  8. Khürt Williams says:
    May 4, 2020 at 11:06 pm

    I really want a macro lens.

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  9. krikitarts says:
    May 5, 2020 at 12:08 am

    Great results under very challenging conditions. This one really glows. I think Peter Max would have liked it, too.

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  10. eremophila says:
    May 5, 2020 at 5:04 am

    Gorgeous!

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  11. shoreacres says:
    May 5, 2020 at 7:07 am

    I faced the same challenge this weekend, and I’d say you met it quite well. Being forced by circumstances to photograph in open meadows and bogs at high noon isn’t something I try to do, but this is proof that the results can be very nice, indeed.

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    • Steve Gingold says:
      May 5, 2020 at 6:07 pm

      It worked a lot better because the time was around 7 a.m. and the sun still low enough to allow for better light control. My reflector made a big difference in controlling that and the contrast. Thanks, Linda.

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  12. Peter Hillman says:
    May 5, 2020 at 8:33 pm

    Lovely shot of its bits n bobs, Steve. Harsh light can be a real challenge, and no matter what you do, sometimes you have to resort to editing. You did real good.

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