Blowing in the wind
One of the highlights in the cemetery at Christ Lutheran Church in New Berlin on March 18th was the Nueces coreopsis (Coreopsis nuecensis), whose range doesn’t reach Austin and that I get to see only when I travel south. The wind made closeups difficult but I did my usual thing of getting on the ground, setting a high shutter speed, and taking enough pictures that a few of them would likely be okay.
The orange in the background came from Indian paintbrushes (Castilleja indivisa) and the blue from bluebonnets (Lupinus spp).
© 2019 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Good one
Divya NavinRaj
March 22, 2019 at 4:45 AM
This was indeed a good one. I threw away the ones where the flower head was blowing so hard that it cut the frame or ended up out of focus.
Steve Schwartzman
March 22, 2019 at 5:10 AM
Totally gorgeous
Ms. Liz
March 22, 2019 at 5:10 AM
Hooray for gorgeousness!
Steve Schwartzman
March 22, 2019 at 5:15 AM
what an amazing capture
ksbeth
March 22, 2019 at 5:58 AM
It was an amazing cemetery.
Steve Schwartzman
March 22, 2019 at 6:05 AM
Wow!
Jenny Meadows
March 22, 2019 at 6:14 AM
Simple in composition, saturated in colors.
Steve Schwartzman
March 22, 2019 at 6:29 AM
I believe this is a new favorite for me. Wind is such a challenge, and WOW on that background!
Littlesundog
March 22, 2019 at 6:41 AM
Happy new favorite! The wildflowers in the background lent their rich colors without any details.
Steve Schwartzman
March 22, 2019 at 6:49 AM
Quite beautiful, Steve. I appreciate these suggestions from the field for handling difficult conditions. The grand result speaks for itself.
MichaelStephenWills
March 22, 2019 at 7:56 AM
I’m pleased you consider the result grand and am glad you found the suggestions valuable. With closeups I spend a fair amount of time down low or even lying on the ground. The wind here made my life hard but high shutter speeds and relatively high ISOs did the trick.
Steve Schwartzman
March 22, 2019 at 8:02 AM
Goodness, a beautiful shot. I have a feeling I’m gonna say that very often on this site.
Tina
March 22, 2019 at 8:32 AM
Thanks. I’ve been promoting native plants in the Austin area for almost eight years, with occasional jaunts to places farther away in Texas, in other states, and even twice each to Canada and New Zealand. Central Texas is home to such profuse wildflowers, especially in the spring, that I can count on beautiful views.
Steve Schwartzman
March 22, 2019 at 8:46 AM
As you say, simple in composition (although not simple to get!) and richly saturated in color.
melissabluefineart
March 22, 2019 at 9:24 AM
Saturation can saturate my mind as much as it want to.
Steve Schwartzman
March 22, 2019 at 9:50 AM
I’be been reading about the poor folks who are seeing the worst flooding ever in Iowa….I’ll bet they’d rather be saturated with color!
melissabluefineart
March 23, 2019 at 9:13 AM
Yes, they’ve had a terrible time. Even under normal conditions this would be much too early in the year for places that far north to have flowers. Ten years ago in the spring we drove from Austin to Iowa to attend a wedding. When we left Austin everything was warm and green and flowering. As we drove north, the spring gradually receded, and by the time we reached Iowa there wasn’t yet a green leaf on any tree or a flower to be seen anywhere.
Steve Schwartzman
March 23, 2019 at 10:04 AM
That reminds me of the naturalist and his wife who drove north with the spring and wrote a book about it. Can’t remember his name to save my life.
melissabluefineart
March 24, 2019 at 8:14 AM
https://www.amazon.com/SPRING-NATURALISTS-RECORD-JOURNEY-AMERICAN/dp/B000W7TPH0
Consider your life saved.
Steve Schwartzman
March 24, 2019 at 9:19 AM
Yup, that’s the one.
melissabluefineart
March 25, 2019 at 8:25 AM
What a beauty. Flower and shot.
Heyjude
March 22, 2019 at 9:30 AM
The Nueces coreopsis (named for the Nueces River) is especially nice due to its red markings about a third of the way out from the flower head’s center.
Steve Schwartzman
March 22, 2019 at 9:51 AM
Absolutely phantasmafloragorical!
Susan Scheid
March 22, 2019 at 2:19 PM
Haha, I’d actually meant this for the Texas wildflowers post, though this one is certainly phantasmafloragorical in its own singular way.
Susan Scheid
March 22, 2019 at 2:21 PM
I’ll accept that excellent portmanteau word for both the myriad and singular, no hesitation. By coincidence the other day I caught part of the 1930 movie The Florodora Girl:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020891/
Steve Schwartzman
March 22, 2019 at 2:27 PM
Indian paintbrush or something like it supposedly lives here, but I seriously do not remember seeing it. It is one of those mythical flowers that I have heard of in exotic places, so if I never see it, that would be just fine.
tonytomeo
March 23, 2019 at 10:14 PM
There’s a zillion species of Castilleja in the United States, including a bunch in California:
http://bonap.net/Napa/TaxonMaps/Genus/County/Castilleja
Let’s hope you do eventually get to see one, even if not in the numbers we have here.
Steve Schwartzman
March 23, 2019 at 11:33 PM
South of Gonzales on FM 108, I found exactly one of these flowers. It was along the side of the road, and caught my eye because of those beautiful red markings. I’d never seen anything like it, and I had no idea what it was. Now I do. It looks like you had some nice sunlight to go with that wind, and the photo captures the sense of liveliness I felt in them.
shoreacres
March 24, 2019 at 6:27 AM
It surprises me that you found only one. Beginning south of Seguin I found scads of them, as I expected to from earlier trips down that way. The patterning on each head is attractive, no doubt about it.
The sunlight made this picture possible. Otherwise the light would have been too dull to use a high shutter speed.
Steve Schwartzman
March 24, 2019 at 8:52 AM
Lovely windswept blossom and background, Steve.
tanjabrittonwriter
March 26, 2019 at 8:56 PM
I’m pleased with this artistically. Glad you are too.
Steve Schwartzman
March 26, 2019 at 11:23 PM
That background is extraordinary! I love the blowing Coreopsis too, of course – it’s great to use a different angle – but oh, the way those background colors merge together and complement the flower! Fabulous image! I’m sorry to have to leave so many comments at once – I just can’t keep up these days!
bluebrightly
March 29, 2019 at 8:54 PM
Thanks, Lynn. I was really happy with the background: all color and no detail at all, a portrait photographer’s delight.
No problem about a bunch of comments at once. As with setting a camera, sometimes bunch mode is what’s called for.
Steve Schwartzman
March 29, 2019 at 9:12 PM
Gorgeous!
Julie@frogpondfarm
March 30, 2019 at 12:14 AM
You’ll get no argument from me.
Steve Schwartzman
March 30, 2019 at 6:10 AM