I went back to Echo Park with my friend Mike to see how the Lotus Plants were doing and take some more pictures.  We timed it to arrive around 4:00 PM hoping for soft light.  But, it was still "hot" light ... not the soft, red, sunrise/sunset, kind of light I had hoped for.   This first Lotus picture was taken out in the open with that light.

So, I started looking for subjects that were hidden partially from the direct rays of the Sun.  Here's the backside of a Lotus leaf partially shaded by other surrounding plants:

The sun was behind me in the first two shots and I like shooting flowers where the plant is positioned directly between the camera and the Sun.  Its rays cause the flower's petals to become translucent.  It's an effect I like. So I started walking across to the other side of the lake to get the Sun in the position I wanted.  

On my little jaunt, I came across another photographer taking shots of a young, black woman.  She had really nice sharp facial features and the light coming off her dark skin and hair was fabulous ... I took a quick click.  I really like the result! What do you think?

I found a completely open flower lying on its side ... almost touching the surface of the water.  It's end would be soon.  Click!

This next image was out in the open.  I liked the arrangement of the open bud on the right and the three unopened buds on the left side.  Because the light was too bright and uninteresting, I underexposed the image by a significant amount.  

I call this shot the "Michelin Man" because of the circles on the left side of the image ... they look like a man and reminded me of the comic Michelin figure used in their tire ads. Those circles are caused by pinpoints of light reflected back into the lens. This image, too, was underexposed.  Detail was brought back in post processing using Photoshop.

This shot is  similar to the one above.  I like the juxtaposition of the open flower and the remains of an earlier flower, and the way light fell on the open flower.  It's one of my faves from the  shoot.

That's it for this entry!  Thank you for taking the time to look and comment.  

Bye for now,

Adam

P.S.  The detail in the flowers really shows up in a larger size ... I hoped you clicked on at least one of the images to see that.