The glow from within
A few years ago, my path to work runs through a park with a lotus pond. From spring to summer, the flowers will bloom and I would stop by to take pictures of the lotus blossoms. As pretty as they are for the eyes, they are rather difficult to photograph right. At least that’s how it was for me. My first venture to take pictures of these magnificent flowers produced little results as I started late in the flowering season. It was already late August and most of the flowers have withered. So I promised myself that I would need to start paying attention earlier next season
Despite starting early in the following season, it was still quite difficult to get a satisfactory shot. I began getting closer and closer to the flowers, examining every detail, and the different stages of the flowering process. After many repeated visits, and various shooting angles, I began to come to know them. Yet, I was still having a hard time making the flower stand out. The composition was too banal and does not do the flower justice. There’s something that the ancient sages knew about the Lotus that is eluding me.
One day, I came across this Lotus bloom that was just at its peak. The seed pod was still hidden by the half open petals, and the background was clear. The luminosity of the morning sun was still soft yet enough to make the flower glow. The only sound breaking the silence was the clunking of the shutter mechanism in the camera. The original image was not quite the final vision I intended for the flower. Below is an uncropped, unprocessed jpeg straight from the camera.
After some time spent developing the raw image under rawtherapee, I finally settled for a black and white rendering of the flower, with a darkened background to make the flower “glow” in the dark.
Scribbles in the sand 