Blossom of a pitcher plant (C&C welcome)

Scott_Quier

For our vacation, the DW and I went to the John C. Campbell Folk School (home page link) for a week away from newspapers, telephones, internet, and most other things modern. There were NO locks on the doors! Anyway, I took a short photography course and the following is one of the shots I took:

I've never been much good at macro work, maybe because I didn't have the patience or the hardware (glass) to do the job right. Anyway, a short while ago I purchased the EF 100 f/2.8 macro. This is a nice/fun lens to work with. The following is an example of some of the stuff I was able to capture (thanks to a classmate who showed me the "right" way to approach/compose/frame such a subject).


All natural light. The black background was the cover to a diffuser/reflecter set and, as you can see, I didn't quite get it all the way black. But, I still like it.

P.S. - This was taken without harming the plant in any fashion.

Maestro

It almost looks like a lamp generating its own light. Very neat.

Scott_Quier

Maestro wrote:

It almost looks like a lamp generating its own light. Very neat.

Thanks!

Maestro

Scott_Quier wrote:

Thanks!

And I meant to say as well that the black background really helps the colors pop!

mmroden

Not to be nitpicky, but is that really a pitcher plant? Pitchers have a distinctive, well, pitcher that they use to catch insects and sometimes birds, so that they can eat their prey:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcher_plant

One interesting thing, though-- if you give the pitcher plant nitrogen, it doesn't grow the pitcher. So I suppose that's what you could have there.

Scott_Quier

mmroden wrote:

Not to be nitpicky, but is that really a pitcher plant? Pitchers have a distinctive, well, pitcher that they use to catch insects and sometimes birds, so that they can eat their prey:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcher_plant

One interesting thing, though-- if you give the pitcher plant nitrogen, it doesn't grow the pitcher. So I suppose that's what you could have there.

There are many varieties of pitcher plants. This was identified to me as such by someone who would know. In addition, this is the blossom, not the "pitcher" part of the plant. The pitcher part was there, and for this variety, was a gound hugging tube.

The photos and illustrations in the wiki you included are a much more common variety and the one that most people think of when a pitcher plant is mentioned. If I had thought about it more, I would have asked the variety name so as to include it in my notes.

As for the growth behavior in the presence of N - this is reasonable as the plant is designed to capture insects to supplement low concentrations of N in it's environment.

KvPhoto

I really love this shot!

mmroden

You know, for all my (erroneous) pedantry, I never said that I really like this shot.

I really like this shot.

Scott_Quier

mmroden wrote:

You know, for all my (erroneous) pedantry, I never said that I really like this shot.

I really like this shot.

That's OK. Thanks for looking and being interested enough to comment.