Gymea Lilly

We are fortunate that our children all live neaby so we are able to mainatain a good relationship with them and given my interest in photography they often let me know of photo opportunities I may not otherwise see.

One of those opportunities is a Gymea Lilly coming into bloom in the Royal National Park across the road from the home of one of our girls.  As she lives on the edge of such a wonderfull natural environment I often get calls to photograph wildlife which occassionally strays into their backyard.  This time it was a Gymea Lilly immediately across the road from them and I checked it out while we were there for the birthday b-b-q but thought it would not go down well if I wandered off so I returned last night to see what I could achieve.

Gymea Lilly Faces
Canon 40D, Sigma 80-400mm Lens @ 200mm, 1/60sec @ f/5.6, ISO 400, Flash, Hand held.

Because it was late in the afternoon the sun was low behind the plant which caused me to use the flash to seperate the subject from the background.  This worked reasonably well but created a shadow which I had not anticipated, as you can see in the shot above.  I shall be returning to record the flowers as they open and will also be playing around with off-camera flash to eliminate that shadow.  So this subject will certainly be an interesting excercise giving me an opportunity to practice the remote slave flash control function of the 7D.


The Gymea Lilly is an extremely tall plant  so it's not often you get to look at it eye to eye but because this one is growing on the a slope falling down from the road I am able to do just that.  But even so, another element I had not anticipated when I pressed the shutter was the faces so clearly visible here.