I just returned from my trip to Big Bend National Park and I had a great time once again. I came away with hundreds of photos that I now have to cull through and process. That’s going to take me a few days. In the meantime, I’ll share a Tree Cholla flower that we found along Highway 118 while scouting locations. We had to use a reflector to light the flower evenly as the harsh, mid-day sun was casting shadows across the face of the flower.
The weather in Big Bend was very windy and dry. The Texas Wildflowers were practically nonexistent. There were also no clouds for most of our sunrise and sunset photos. As a result, I decided to focus my efforts on photographing wildflowers and the night sky. I did come away with some decent landscape photos. The trip was a great experience nonetheless and I’m looking forward to returning in the fall.
This image was taken with my Canon EOS 5D Mark III using my Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro Lens. The camera was set on Manual mode with the aperture set at f/7.1, shutter speed at 1/2000th of a second and the ISO set at 500. I am trying to use natural lighting in my wildflower photographs so I did not use a flash. There was quite a bit of wind that day and so I had to use a very fast shutter to stop the movement. This was a single image processed in Lightroom and Nik ColorEfex Pro.
You can access the profile for this flower by clicking here. Please use the section below to post your comments, questions or suggestions.