First time sharing a RAW for play here. Don’t take my aged V-Lux1 out much since the batterie’s so bad, I might be able to take 3 to 5 captures before it dies (not to mention I’m an amateur retoucher, not a photog). Anyway, this particular Surprise Lilly has come up at the same spot near my back porch for well over 25 years. Haven’t really spread much; just a few more stems from the original 1 stem that came up back then. Thought it would be something to play with
Never heard it called a spider lillly; both terms (proper name of surprise lilly appears to be bareroot red surprise lilly; also can be called red spider lily, red magic lily, corpse flower or equinox flower. Wiki doesn’t call it surpise lilly, though, but plenty of sites do) appear to work. Whatever you call it, it’s a beautiful flower, imo. Comes up in the spring as a green plant, it then dies in the summer and comes back in the fall as the bloom I captured. There’s two locations that I have these. Likely either originally planted by squirrel droppings or bird poop. lol
Surprised that, after so many decades now, they keep coming up every year. I make sure I don’t lawnmower the plant in the spring.
Since these batteries are old, too, they, more than likely, have issues as well. Not sure when the battery type changed with Leica, but they did. Even so, again, I’m not a photog nor do I even have a smartphone (just a flip that takes lousy pics; lol). I prefer to manipulate images; everyone has their own mantra/mission to do. To each his/her own.
Nice shot and an interesting flower. I tried the trick I learned here of desaturating the highlights to add contrast. Lots of graduated density and a bit of soften to go for that ‘caught in a sunbeam’ look.
No excuse now.
