Rose

With Spring FINALLY arriving in the Tampa Bay area, I thought I'd post a sure sign of Spring in these parts.

This Rose was in the garden at Veterans' Memorial Garden at the Safety Harbor Marina a couple weeks ago when I went out for our regular Monday Night Meetup.

I love the smell, texture and color of Roses. The ones people buy from florists are beautiful, but they're too perfect. This is the kind of Rose most people plant in their gardens. Not only are they beautiful, but their fragrance can only be topped by Orange blossoms, as far as I'm concerned. The bees love them though, so I need to be careful around them because I'm allergic to bee stings.

I know, you're all thinking about how many bees I photograph--I do it with a very, long lens. Usually, bees aren't intimidated by lenses being poked in their faces. They're too busy going about their business. Just imagine without bees and butterflies, we wouldn't have such beautiful flowers in our gardens.

Unidentified Orange Flower

This pretty orange flower was shot while I was "playing" with my new macro lens. I didn't have my tripod, and it was very windy, so I'm surprised I even got this one as sharp as it is.

I found this flower in the butterfly garden in Safety Harbor in Veterans' Memorial Park at the Marina. It kind of looks like some kind of poppy. The outside is yellow but the inside is orange. The color is an accurate rendition of the actual color of the inside of the flower. The flowers grow are one to a stem, about 18-24" tall and the Monarch Butterflies won't leave them alone. They apparently love their nectar. There were 3 Monarchs in this garden and each one was burried inside these flowers. They couldn't seem to get enough.

Does anyone out there know what this flower is? I'd appreciate it of you could let me know.

This second shot, although not my best because it clearly shows the effects of the wind is posted to let my readers know the shape, size and outside color of the flower to make it easier to identify.

Settings used to capture this flower were: ISO 200, 1/100th of a second at F7.1 at 90mm with my Tamron 90mm F2.8 macro lens.