All of the lady slippers shown here were shot at Andrus Lake State Forest, near Paradise, MI. —In fact, they were all growing in either the campsites or the picnic grounds, and thus, very easy to find. I saw additional pink ladyslippers along the organizational trail attached to the Rivermouth semi-modern camping at Taquamenon, as well as on the path between the upper and lower falls (along with possibly 5 kinds of ferns—alas that I ran out of memory), quite near the upper falls (within a quarter mile).

At the picnic grounds. I adjusted this image a little, but it still looks a tad on the yellow side, as the one below seem a touch blue. C'est la vie.

Though the stillness meant many mosquitoes, it also meant the flowers weren't bouncing around the breeze. I like the way these pix came out. I should note, these flowers range from ivory with pale pink veining to a quite deep fuchsia, as shown here. The more richly colored flowers had chocolate brown twisted petals, but the lighter ones were more greenish, as was the shield-shaped ‘cover’ which I'm guessing was part of the flower's stamen.

with the sun backlighting. f 3.8 @ 1/14 sec -0.3 exposure bias.

I have resisted the urge to purchase these flowers, as they're extremely expensive (actually, Arrowhead Alpines is offering ’em for $15.00 ea) and hard to grow, but after seeing so many of them, I'm tempted.

Another backlit shot. f3.4 @ 1/23 sec, 0 exposure bias.

In the meantime, I made many sketches and watercolors of these lovely orchids, which perhaps I'll scan and post in the future.

file created 14jun08.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.