When one goes to orchid shows and one already grows orchids, one inevitably buys more orchids. I was again lucky enough to go to the Southeast Pennsylvania Orchid Society Show at Longwood Gardens in March. This time, however, due to new time obligations, I was able to-- rather, forced to -- skip the setup AND the early morning trip! Instead we spent about 4 hours there on Saturday.
I went into OMG THOUSANDS OF ORCHIDS!!!! mode, and went frantically about making 2 rounds of the show with two different lenses on my Sony a300 camera: first the 100mm macro lens for close-by flowers, then the 75-300mm macro zoom lens for everything else. Seriously loved using the zoom, as I was able to get really nice pics of plants waaaay in the back of the exhibits (and some of those bloody exhibits are like 10 feet deep), not to mention the miniatures on the floor and anything wired to a tree over my head.
I hate doing an orchid show rant since there are now so few, but here: I really HATE it when tiny flowers end up at ankle-level in a display. SMALL = EYE LEVEL. The BIG plants should go on the ground, where you can't miss them! Eensy-weensy mini-catts haven't a chance of being noticed or photographed or judged properly when you can't see them! Nobody sane would put a Masdevallia infracta on the floor, but plenty of displays put brachypetalum paphs there!
Nevertheless, I got plenty of satisfaction from the show, which was gorgeous and full of amazing and choice species and hybrids, and some very cool displays. And I got bagfuls of new planties. H&R alone, I went crazy. Will have some great recommendations up soon...
