Old & New

I try not to post too many flower photos (though I seem to take a fair number) because down here they are so easy my journal could easily become one flower after another - and each would be different. On flower Friday I decided to make an exception. My wife had been coveting a bloom of this plant for some time. We were out of the country the last time it bloomed. So when it popped the other day, she started requesting that I get a shot of this multi-tentacaled blossom. Of course, I almost waited too long, the one she originally saw is decaying on the left. I decided a good photo required the use of a tri-pod and a little focus magic to make sure all the petals and stamens were in focus (combined two differently focused images into a single photo). Oh, and a black t-shirt as a background helped simplify to composition.