The Strelitzia Reginae, also known as the Bird of Paradise Flower, indigenous to South Africa has been on my photographic list from the first time I saw it almost two years ago in our local Botanical Gardens here in Dublin. It had however alluded me until last Saturday. I’m not sure exactly why but I was never happy with any of the compositions I had shot during the early visits, and decided I would leave it a while and revisit it at a later stage. On Saturday I managed to capture the image that was waiting in some corner of my brain all this time. On the back of my success with Form and Texture I decided to focus on the attributes of the flower rather then the flower as a whole.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens: Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM
Exposure: 1/100
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 100mm
ISO Speed: 400