Every year at this time, the Missouri Botanical Gardens host what is considered to be one of the premier orchid shows in the United States. It has been my pleasure for the past 5 years to photograph the show before it opens to showcase the beautiful orchids.
Each year, Pat Scace and her team create a walk-thru orchid world with a different theme. This year the theme was Mesoamerica, the area between Mexico and Costa Rica where Pre-Columbian societies thrived long before the Spanish and others colonized the Americas. The show features Orchids from that area and structures and “Moss-people” that fit the look of the Olmec, Mayan and Aztec cultures. The headdresses on each Moss person was created by a different artist.
The show is staged in a very large presentation area with large glass skyline windows. In the morning it has the feel of being in a tropical rain forest, and the scents of the Orchids surround you and pull you in. It’s quite intoxicating. Each year when I go in to shoot the show I tell myself it will be a quick shoot . . . . it never is. Everywhere you look is another amazing looking Orchid, and the accouterments make for an experience worth taking my time.
I shot the exhibit using two Canon EOS-Rs, one in natural color, and the other converted to Hyper Color and I used a Super Color filter. For lenses I used the RF 35mm f1.8 STM, the RF 24-105 f4 L, and the EF 70-300 f4.5-5.6
It’s was a very easy shoot, the light was near perfect and everywhere I looked was something beautiful to capture.
For the Super Color images, I set a custom white balance off of an area of foliage. Since I was shooting both Super Color and Hyper Color I’ve learned from experience that a WB on Super Color will produce a slight green cast to my Hyper Color images, but that is easy to correct in post-production by setting a proper WB balance using the RAW editor made fro my camera, in this case Canons Digital Photo Professional.
Here’s what I ended up with shooting Super Color.
And here are the Hyper Color images.
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Dan Wampler
Dan Wampler is a digital artist from St Louis, MO. Having been interested in art and photography since childhood, he spent most of adult life working for Kodak and in the portrait photography industry. A student of the works of Ansel Adams, Any Warhol, and David Hamilton, Dan attempted to keep a wide range of artistic style.
As an early adopter of digital imaging, he found it gave him a way to completely incorporate art and photography. Began shooting Digital Infrared in 2004, and had first camera converted in 2006. His work has been seen in numerous gallery shows, is featured in an iTunes app. He produces Infrared and natural color digital art for sale and teaches his post-production techniques online.
Dan is LifePixel's Creative Director, social media manager, lead blog author, main workshops and training sessions instructor. His images appear in this gallery and throughout the website.
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