And now on with the show.... Chicago Flower and Garden Show, Part 2

Okay, so I diverged for a minute to talk about a few settings on the camera.  Now we'll go back to the shots I took with it. :)

I mentioned before that I wanted to do an entire post on the tulip garden because it was one of the few areas done right (as far as lighting and labeling goes).

Way More Than Two-'Lips.

This was the tulip garden.  I overheard someone say that every four days of the show or so every one of these bulbs will be pulled up and replaced so that the blooms remain perfect for the entire run of the show.  That's no small undertaking.  I shot this with the widest possible aperture, but really, I wasn't going to get all these flowers in focus.  As you can see, it goes on for quite a while.

Something else I overheard made a lot of sense: this tulip garden is set up right.  Tulips look great singly or in clusters like this.  When you see tulips in a single row... they end up looking like an eight-year-old's drawing.  The other great thing about this set up was that each cluster of flowers was labeled.  I now have a nifty little file of pictures with the signs so that when I go back to the Chicago Botanic Gardens in a few weeks, or downtown, and all the tulips aren't labeled, I can just compare them to the shots from this show and figure out which species I'm looking at.

And I really do love the way these flowers photograph.  And a photograph lasts eons longer than the short-lived flowers.

Synaeda Amor Tulip from the Top

The insides of tulips are amazing.  Like they were created to be textbook examples of pistils, stamens and anthers.  There's also something about the architecture and symmetry that makes me think of looking in a kaleidoscope.

Gavotas Going Fast

I took this deliberately off-kilter.  I liked the sense of movement created by the lines heading into the corner.  The Gavotas (crimson and yellow) Tulips in the front seem to be trying to race or pass the Canastas behind them.

Ever have peppermint salt-water taffy?  (If not, you should, it's really good stuff.)  Anyway, I swear this is what happens when someone crafts a living flower out of that candy.  This is the kind of shot where you want your white balance to be spot on.  These flowers wouldn't look nearly as awesome if they were pink and slightly-yellowish-white.

Sensational Rem's Sensation

These two-toners are called Rem's Sensation Tulips.  Another place where you want the white balance to be on spot.  I like these more than the similar Canastas.  I think it's because the frilly edge of the Canastas don't strike me as 'tulip-y'.  One of the neat things about tulips is how neat and clean they are.

The Heart of the Ad Rems

These actually are yellow and pinkish-red.  They remind me of a watercolor.  These are Ad Rem Beauties.  According to the 'net, Ad Rem means "to the matter (subject, topic)."  Not quite sure what that has to do with flowers, but there it is.

Key Parts of Kees Nelis

Another shot of the awesome geometric-ness of the inside of a tulip.  I love that the colors band around the inside and outside of the petals.  It really enhances that kaleidoscope effect.  This is called a Kees Nelis.  Which strikes me as Dutch for something, but I really have no idea.

About to Flower

Your good, old, standard "plain red tulips".  These weren't part of the tulip garden, actually.  They were in a different display and clearly they weren't planning to change them out every four days, they just planted them early in their budding cycle.





Okay, there will be one more post of the other more random flowers I shot at that show.