Flowers are one of the most fascinating subjects for artists, and photographers have always been attracted by these wonders of nature, like bees do to flowers all the time. It’s one of the best ways to bring the beauty of flowers to you through photos, without killing them. A plucked flower lives only for a while, but a photographed flower lives far longer and with more grace and pride. My father never allowed us to pluck flowers, as kids. He always emphasised that flowers are to be admired on the branch of it’s own plant, its like killing someone. In India, flowers are offered to gods and goddesses in temples all the time; whereas my father has been vehemently against it. He has always wondered that how do people justify this criminal act of “killing’ so many flowers and then offering to God who makes them. Will He like this act of being cruel to His nature? And I agree with my father in total. Well, at the same time, I also would not deny the fact that in this world we live by exploiting nature and flowers have given livelihood to many millions of people.

Here, I will try to share my experiences about flower photography with you all, though, more through my own flower photos. Also, I will try to share some experiences in words, as most of you would be keen to know how a particular image was created.

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Petals

a poem by Amy Lowell

Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad, early start.

Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know. And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

Nile is a dream river for every visitor and photographers love to photograph everything around this great river.  Egypt presents the visitor with many striking contrasts, particularly in its landscape and in the ancient, Christian and Islamic elements of its heritage. Signs of Westernization and tradition are sometimes found in startlingly incongruous juxtaposition, bur more usually the new is adapted to blend harmoniously with the old.

Nile – the great river which flows down its entire length has united Egypt, and which indeed is the creator of the country. Without the Nile, Egypt would not exist.  The great majority of its estimated 80 million live along the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable agricultural land is found. And cultivate the land as their ancestors have done for thousands of year. This narrow, fertile valley is flanked by the desert- a desert which is always threatening to take over the cultivation. Today, controlled by dams and barrages, the Nile no longer floods the country every year. The building of the High Dam at Aswan flooded the whole of the Nile valley between Aswan and the frontier with Sudan, creating Lake Nasser. Preserved from the threat of devastating floods, Egypt is now protected from the dangers of famine by the regulation of the water.

Egypt has a landscape which is surprisingly varied, but all of the terrain derives from a combination of water and sky, cultivation and desert.

Dervish Dance/ Sufi Dance Video

MORE INFO ABOUT EGYPT

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During my last three four visits to the Garden, I have been viewing only these tiny flowers (not more than 5mm wide) through my macro lens, which grow in bunch. This cactus bush is thronged by the bees and the work starts with daybreak itself and that’s why the phrase `busy like bee’. I find this place teeming with small insect life also, sometimes I get to see insects moving on flowers only through the lens, otherwise too small to get noticed. Its always very satisfying.

You will see some nice photos of cactus flowers here, often. I hope you will enjoy and start looking at cactus differently, also hoping locals will change their superstition towards cactus.

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