The photograph below is of a Strawberry Hedgehog Cactus taken during a hike on the Contrabando Trail at the Big Bend State Park during my visit to the area last spring. I decided to hike the trail one day while some of my colleagues went off and did other things. The park has 238 miles of trails and many of them offer great access to Texas Wildflowers, especially during the spring. I mentioned in a post earlier this year that the rainfall last spring was minimal and that I was going to focus mostly on photographing flowering cacti. The Strawberry Hedgehog Cactus is one of my favorite cactus flowers. One has to be careful when photographing these plants. I recall backing into another cactus plant while taking this photo. Not a pleasant experience.
The Big Bend State Park is adjacent to the Big Bend National Park. The state park’s website has the tagline “Welcome to the Other Side of Nowhere!” That statement is true for that part of Texas but it’s definitely true for the park. The park does have quite a few interesting activities including hiking, mountain biking, backpacking, horse rides and general exploring using two and four-wheel drive vehicles. It is by far Texas’ biggest park. I like the fact that it has even fewer people than the National Park so if you crave solitude this might be the place for you.
This image was taken with my Canon EOS 5D Mark III using my Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro Lens. The camera was set on Manual mode with the aperture set at f/6.3, shutter speed at 1/500th of a second and the ISO set at 100. I did not use a flash to light the subject. I used Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro to process the image.
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Very nice. I really like the natural light. Getting that angle is probably what led to you becoming overly familiar with another cactus. :)
Thanks Lucas. Yes, I was on the ground trying to get the sky in the photo.