Annual Spring Bulb Show, revisited

Because I'd never led off consecutive posts with fish images ...

Actually, having the experience of one trip behind me, and knowing that the bulbs I captured last Saturday would actually open up later in the week -- and during a warm afternoon sun -- I returned to the show to capture more (and, thankfully) satisfying images, including the fish in the two koi ponds.

I wondered whether they should rename the ponds "coin" ponds, there were so many spots loaded with "wishing well" coins. Part of the challenge of capturing fish images there was positioning the vantage point to reflect the fewest amount of coins, but it was nearly an impossible task. All of the coins in the photo above, and most of the ones in the other fish picture in this post were erased in post-processing.

The bulbs -- well, tulips, primarily -- indeed were open on my return visit, and the light hit the flowers in both the glass atrium area where the spring bulbs were displayed and the tropical plant display in the temperature-controlled main section of the Garfield Park Conservatory in a most splendid way.

The image of the crocus plant below (purple bloom with orange-gold stamen) actually was outdoors, right outside the conservatory's main entrance.

The annual Spring Bulb Show

I'd never led a blog post with an image of a fish before, so I thought I'd do that today in this post of some shots from Saturday's shoot at the 2010 Spring Bulb Show at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Indianapolis. All of these were shot with my Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro lens. Except for the fish shots, for which I had to boost the ISO to 1600 to get a fast shutter and freeze the action, I was able to use a tripod -- and, more importantly, an ISO of 100.

The fish are from the conservatory's koi pond, which actually is part of the tropical plant display inside the conservatory and not part of the bulb show. I neglected to use my polarizing filter to blunt the glare, but decided to post the top image nevertheless because I like the piggybacking going on.

The bulb show runs through Friday; on Saturday, the conservatory will sell the bulbs on a first-come, first-serve basis. In May, look for the conservatory to again let the public come in -- on a one-day only basis (because that's all they need) -- and dig out the bulbs in the Sunken Garden as they get ready to put in the summer arrangements.

If you're interested in getting free bulbs that way, visit the consevatory's Web site and sign up for the email notification they'll send out verifying the date and time.

On April 17-18, the conservatory will hold its annual orchid show. Very pretty orchids on display throughout the indoor premises.

Above: A neat convergence of species and foliage. The green "wall" on the right actually is a huge foliage leaf.

Above: An experiment with narrow depth-of-field on a porcupine tree trunk in the tropical plant area.

Above: First of two interesting flower stamens.

Above: Second of two interesting flower stamens. This petal reminded me of the Rolling Stones tongue logo.

Above: A curious fish swimming straight for me. The "Jaws" theme was not playing.