Phyllis brought a Phalaenopsis (“moth orchid”) home for a short visit to our sunny living room. Leaving the orchid in its decorative pot, I photographed the blossoms using a vertical light box setup (image below).

This genus of orchid was first brought to Europe in the mid-nineteenth century and collected by the Victorians. Today, it is widely sold for decorative purposes throughout the world because of its ease of propagation and cultivation. While the range of the genus in the wild includes Java and Australia, it probably originated in the Philippines (the tag on the Phalaenopsis that I photographed indicates that my specimen was grown in Salinas, California).

Next, I photographed a single flower up close and personal using my macro probe lens (below). Corn Poppy is another example of an image that uses this lens for a floral close-up.

The orchid close-up is actually a composite, with the lower half exposed using the ring light built into the lens, and the upper half exposed using ambient backlighting. With the camera firmly held in place on a sturdy tripod, the composition of the two images stayed the same despite the different lighting. I combined the two different images using a simple layer mask and gradient in Photoshop.