The Iris as Art

Again with the ostentatious titles :-) ... as I mentioned in my Peony as Art blog post, there were many flowers in bloom that day. Included were several beds of Iris that had more colors than you can shake a stick at. So of course I tried to capture something interesting there as well. I shot some pretty bog standard stuff, but I also managed some closeups that intrigue me a bit ...

The Iris has a few really interesting properties ... first is the throat, which comes I suppose from the fact that there is always one petal hanging down like a tongue. Then, there is the hairy stamens that crawl up and out of the throat, perhaps a bit creepy actually ...

I'd never seen (or maybe just niticed) a multicolored Iris before ...


Shooting Iris in the sun means getting a wash of heavy light across and down the tongue, but these lighter ones look very pretty that way ...



Of course, then you go to the opposite side and have to deal with a shadow down the tongue :-)



I stopped down the lens a lot to get this Iris fully into sharp focus. Of course, the price is a busier background ...


I like the clusters of light ones against the background of the dark ones ... stands out nicely ...


I *love* the colors on these ...


Here is one that I think is very delicate. It's one of my favorite images from the shoot ...


And, of course, basic yellow is always pretty ...


Another delicate one ...


A pretty baby blue ...


Some Iris have three such throats ... very cool.


Kind of an off white thing ... reminds me of a ruffled shirt ... very showy ...


And in we go for a closer look ...







And back out to mine other beds for their Iris gold ... a lovely color on these ...



Ok, yes, that was the same plant :-) ... but here's another of those with great tongue texture ...



And another soft looking yellow one ...


A final spectacular Iris ... I love these bold contrasts ...


There were, of course, yet more flowers around, but they were just coming into bloom. The bells here (I forget the name of the flower) had only a couple of plants with any flowers at all ...


And I forget what this was .... but it looks *great* on film ... think of it as an old man's unruly eyebrow or something ...


There you have it .... a bit of art. Or not. As you wish ...