Indigo: Wildflowers

Scan of Indigo Wildflower

Indigo Scanned After Dissapointing Trip

The other day I went photographing wildflowers again. The results were a bit ordinary except for this indigo.

Arriving at my wildflower photography spot as it was getting light, I couldn't tell that the sky was overcast. Having waited around for a while, there was enough light to see the dissapointing truth that the light was flat and not at all colourful.

Managing the Light

With the digital camera set up under the edge of some low hanging trees to give the light some accent, I tried my best to salvage what I could from a difficult situation. But alas, it just wouldn't go right. I had trouble with the focus, and the light, although accented under the trees, was pretty much colourless and dull, not what is needed for showing off the vibrant hues and forms of delicate wildflowers.

Return Home with Indigo Specimine

So stashing the camera in the car I gave up, planning to return another day. Before closing the back of the wagon, I put some wildflower specimines, including the indigo, in with the cameras, thinking I might set up something at home with the medium format camera and do some good in a more controlled environment.

Scanning the Indigo Flower

It took a few tries on the scanner but eventually I achieved what I think is a stunning photograph of the indigo flower pictured here. It printed up quite well at A3 size.

The black background is simply the white sealing of the room. I turned off the room light so that the indigo flower, sitting on the scanner bed, was much more brightly illuminated than the sealing.

The scanned section of the flower spike is about 75 mm long and was origionally scanned at 1200 dpi allowing for a large print.

Origin of the Indigo Name

Now, the colour rendition of the indigo flower on this webpage is fairly accurate. This colour is not indigo. The colour indigo falls at the bottom end of the visible light spectrim. Ultra violet, violet, indigo, blue and so on. So how come the old timers called this plant indigo? Well, this is how I've worked it out:

In the old days, the plant, indigo, was used for fabric dye. I suppose they boiled it up to get the indigo coloured dye. Did they use the flowers or the leaves? I don't know, but I reckon it might have been that the extract from the leaves would produce indigo coloured dye. If you can confirm this I'd be pleased to here from you. E-mail Laurie

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