Three from So Far Today

Went to check the Magnolia for blossoms, no such luck yet. I walked around the tree doing shots at will and got these three which I like. It almost encourages me now that I have the macro to redo the two years of Magnolia shots that I did with the Konica A1. Although like Paul Saltzman mentioned on the Photography Discussions blog, it is difficult to go backwards with the same enthusiasm. I am not basically a flower shooter and I only did the Magnolia series because I was surprised after twenty years to realize that I had a tree in my back yard with big white blossoms on it. Yeah, I knew it was a Magnolia, I just never paid any attention to it.

In the process I learned a lot about the interesting life cycle of the Magnolia blossom. The pod that produces the bloom is continually going from a smooth stage to a fuzzy stage. The casing starts out smooth, then it get really fuzzy before it cracks open. The pod that is the petals of the blossom tightly wrapped together comes out of the casing very fuzzy and becomes smooth just before the blossom opens. Then the receptacle, the thing that sticks up like a finger that holds the stamen on the bottom and the stigmas (curly things) on the top gets really fuzzy before it dries up and cracks open revealing the bright red fruit of seeds. It is almost a six month process so photographing it requires having a tree just outside your kitchen window. Because the squirrels eat the receptacle before the seeds are allowed to develop, I have only seen the seeds one time and that was the day before Hurricane Ike hit. I was too busy getting ready for the hurricane (we thought it was going to be a cat 5) that I did not have time to photograph the seeds. Of course the hurricane blew away the pod so I have yet to complete my series.

Above is is a very early stage, the fuzzy casing will get even fuzzier, then it will harden and split along the seam that can be seen running from top to bottom. The outer casing will fall away leaving a fuzzy stage of the blossom that occurs between this stage and the next stage which I photographed below. ISO 1600, f/11 @ 1/125

The is blossom that has emerged from the casing (see above). Here in the smooth stage you begin to see the edge outlines of the petals. In a day or so this will open into the familiar white blossom. ISO 1600, f/11 @ 1/320

The white blossom only lasts a day or two. How long they last seems to depend upon the weather. I recall during the second year of the photographs we were in a drought and the first blossom to open went from the pod, shown above to the white flower, to completely dried up by the end of the day. Here the blossom has dried up and the stamen are beginning to fall away from the receptacle leaving a purplish red stamen scar behind.  ISO 1600, f/11 @ 1/2000