Wildflowers Close-up

I found a few old files of close-up wildflower images and enjoyed going over them once again.

Most of these wildflowers were photographed near home in the Mimosa Rocks National Park or in that general area.

While not the sharpest images you ever saw, I think they’re worth publishing from the point of view of the colour, composition and feel for the subject.

Imagine walking around the bush carrying minimal gear and there’s a little flower, close to the ground.

I grab a bush stick to use as the third leg of a tripod in conjunction with my elbows. Yes, down on my belly with the ants, grubs, lizards and whatever else.

I used an old Pentax Spotmatic camera with extension tubes, a standard lens and natural light.

The metre wasn’t sufficiently reliable so I calculated the exposures according to the light reading with a hand held metre, the aperture, film speed and magnification. Of course, this gave me the correct shutter speed. It was a bit of a juggling act between shutter speed and aperture, given that I worked hand held.

Mimosa Rocks National Park runs more or less along the coast of southern New South Wales from Tathra, half way to Bermagui, a distance of around 15km. The park also extends a few kilometres inland in some places.

Mimosa Rocks National Park is a fairly primitive park and reasonably pristine in many areas. The scene of many a walk for me and the inspiration for my coastal landscapes and wildflower images.

The wildflower images shown have been scanned from the original 6″ x 4″ prints. Any wonder that they are a bit soft, huh?