Springtime Terravita

The photographs for this post were taken at my favourite time of the year in Arizona. The months of March, April and May is the time of year when the flowers and trees are at their very best.

These pictures, including the masthead were shot in our community of Terravita, located in the desert at the north end of Scottsdale.

I begin with this picture taken on the road leading to the street where we reside. This is the scene that catches one’s eye as you drive or walk along it on the way home.

The following, more intimate views of some of my favourite floral blooms were taken in our backyard. Several of these have been shared in past years; but I look forward every year to photographing and sharing them once again.

My favourite is known as the Argentine Giant, the flower of the echinopsis cactus. I’m not sure about the connection to Argentina but the use of the term “giant” is truly descriptive of this flower’s size, about 8″ (20 cm) in diameter. It appears for a brief 24 hours only, before wilting and falling off the cactus.

I also very much like the flower of the Texas Olive tree. As you can’t miss noticing its petals are very delicate. Despite their apparent fragility the flowers do last longer than those of the Argentine Giant.

This is a yellow variant of the Echinopsis cactus flower. It lasts longer, opening and closing daily. This photograph was taken early in the morning as the flower was just beginning to open.

Today’s last photograph features the Crimson Bottlebrush, the flower of a shrub we have in our yard. It’s name derives from its cylindrical shape, composed from spines radiating outward from its stem. It truly looks like a bottlebrush but certainly more colourful than ones you find at Canadian Tire or Lowes.

The first photograph was taken using my Fujifilm X100F camera, hand held. It’s well suited for this type of photograph, a landscape.

All the photographs of flower blooms were taken using my Canon 5DMkIII DSLR, mounted on a tripod and fitted with a 100mm f/2.8L Macro lens. This lens is designed for close- up shots to capture the detail of small subjects. This lens has a minimum focus distance of 12″ (31 cm) which combined with the magnification of a 100mm focal length enables the camera to capture very small detail. This lens is capable of a macro reproduction ratio of 1:1. That is, the image on the camera’s film/sensor approximates the actual size of the object.

Use of a tripod is essential for steadiness of the camera when working at close range, in order to ensure sharpness of the small detail. This is particularly true at longer shutter speeds, as I have used for these photographs.