The pistil of the mini Christmas cactus finally broke thru the crown of the stamens, poking its white head above the top:

A few of the stamen have sprung free of the group and are waving around freely, still hoping the others will free themselves and stand upright.

I continue working on macros of the Christmas cactus, which in reality, has more to do with learning how to work the many different set-ups in the camera then the content which only shows me if what I'm doing is working or not.

This is showing one of the earlier blooms on the left,  that is now on the way out and a new bloom that recently opened. I like that range of sharpness of the image. This is photographed with a 35mm extension tube on a Sigma 70mm macro and 24 stacked images.

A couple weeks ago we bought another Christmas cactus which we thought was like the one you see above. Not so!  Each bulb instead of opening with hanging stamen, opens facing upwards with all the stamens inside. 

There are dozen of blooms on the cactus and they open upwards. The photo below is an effort to photograph the interior of the bloom.

If you click on the image you can see that each stamen is a stalk coming out of the middle of the bloom.  My hope is that they will stand upright and one can see inside the stalks. I assume the white inside the stalks is the pistol but won't be sure until it opens (if it does).

I have been playing with the 'focus stacking' in the newish Sony a7R5.  It seems to work well and still am not able to get the closer edge in sharp focus - take a look at the images below.

 

oxalis, pink

Christmas cactus, buds

Christmas cactus, full bloom

The center image is the early bloom of the bottom image.

We have taken to traveling to Greenville, SC, a mid-size city about 60 miles from us. It has a water fall in the middle of town - never heard or seen anything like it.

And I have posted it in a large format, click on it to see the full size.

And spring reared Her head last week with the blooming of a Magnolia tree:

And her orchids are growing as fast as they can:

Yes, it seems like, these days, the photos are mostly flowers which, of course, is in keeping of these 'springing' days.  Flowers galore!

Oh, in early Feb I was able to get to Pearson's Falls, a family run waterfalls in the mountains where they have created boardwalks, rock steps and picnic tables at the bottom of the falls. Feb is a good time to go...not crowded, which it is in the summer, and plenty of water.

 

 I have been sitting on the back porch watching the sun rise, bundled up with the camera on a tripod and using a remote cable. Today I thought I'd try to get a series of photographs beginning with grey clouds over the distant mountains and then taking photographs as the clouds change colors and the sun makes it way above the mountains — below is the result:

THE NEW YEAR 2023
 

The last couple of days the early morning have been warmish creating thick fog. As it's a winter sun, the colors are very golden-yellow and I love what the color and fog does to the grounds, trees, fences, etc.

Japanese Chestnut

Fence on north side of tree

Dec 28, '22

One of the joys of cold weather is frozen water and taking photos and creating amazing photo just by getting close to the ice.

Most of the water was frozen with a leaf or two sticking out. Most of the color is from the water and dirt the water was frozen above.

I was mostly fascinated with the reflections of the dripping ice in the water as though something was growing up from the post in the water.

Lightwaves and frozen stems ... made me shiver.

Water and dirt.

 Slight different view of the Topsy Turvy,  a better photo of the base of the columns that support the whatever-it-is.

Teeny-tiny mushrooms along the road in the Bent Creek hiking area ... lotsa mushrooms and i'll post more later.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Also from the Bent Creek hike a couple weeks ago ... it was a huge butterfly and while the blooms it continued to land on looked mostly dead, i suppose they were lively enough to supply the butterfly with the energy it needed.