Night Blooming Cereus

ajgauthier

Last year I was introduced to Night Blooming Cereus flowers --- they bloom once, then die, and then we get dragonfruit/pitaya. The house I rent, has 5 different varieties of the cactus on the property...here are a few of my shots. I played with aperture and exposure, light from a maglight covered in white linen and white LED light shown onto a white foamcore board at various angles to the flowers.

Enjoy!

Before the bloom:




The frilly variety:


The flat petal variety (this one is my favorite):


More artistic:


And the one I call "Fairy Light" (for which I wish I had gotten more stem...unfortunately I shot in JPG instead of RAW)


For perspective --- the frilly ones were the size of an outstretched hand...the flat petal twice that size!

Frilly ones:


Hope you enjoy these! I will take feedback...it's all been a learning process, especially depth of field and where to focus.

Adrienne

Eia

Absolutely beautiful!!!!! I just replied to your post from my shot. I really like the two lone blooms with black; gorgeous lighting!!!!!! The bloom looks identical to the one I took but a totally different plant. Interesting... and I have a Night Blooming Cerius but looks nothing like yours. So do you mean there are different varieties of night blooming cerius?

ajgauthier

Eia wrote:

Absolutely beautiful!!!!! I just replied to your post from my shot. I really like the two lone blooms with black; gorgeous lighting!!!!!! The bloom looks identical to the one I took but a totally different plant. Interesting... and I have a Night Blooming Cerius but looks nothing like yours. So do you mean there are different varieties of night blooming cerius?

Thanks! For the 2 with the black background I magic lasso'd and made the background darker b/c it was distracting. Playing with lighting and that white posterboard was fun

Yes - there are different varieties of cereus. These are outside cactus, round 2" thick stems...not like the flatter cactus variety (they look like spring cactus or christmas cactus flat pieces). And they are HUGE blossoms! The flat petal ones are the size of a large salad plate!

Fun to photograph, eh?
Adrienne