This year was my fourth year at the New York Botanical Garden‘s Orchid Show. I can’t say that I like orchids, but then who needs an excuse to visit the NYBG.

The crowds were thick as usual and unfortunately, it was cloudy, so the conditions weren’t great. It also seemed like there were less orchids on display this year. So I started getting disappointed, until I realized the main part of the show, aka Vertical Gardens, was towards the very end. The idea of having orchids in cascading “hanging” arrangements was pretty original; however, I was a lot more interested in capturing them at a much closer angle.

I do have to admit these flowers are definitely more challenging to shoot in macro (especially with a hand-held camera at low light) because they are not “flat”. You want to keep the f/stop high enough to capture intricate petal curves, tiny hairs, and deep “slippers”; but also, keep f/stop low enough to “blow out” busy backgrounds. I found myself mostly somewhere between f/5.0 and f/9, allowing smaller aperture for the shots where the flower took all of the frame.

For more images, visit my Orchid Show 2012 set.