Better late then never Carol. It is a beauty.

TicK

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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven ... maybe especially for the last to bloom.

Flawlessly beautiful photograph, Carol. And the subtle shadow vignette is the perfect compliment to the image, drawing the eye in.

But what I'm genuinely facinated with is the ant that you captured on the Water Lily. That would be some trek for an ant! Obviously he is an adventurer! :)

Have you ever seen what happens to these plants when they get pulled under water? A couple falls ago we were kayaking Minnesota's Lake Itasca and found ourselves in a huge patch of them. As I was trying to position my kayak to let me get a macro photo of the lotus flower, I kept drifting into the flower (maintaining a photo op position in a kayak, in the wind, is damn near impossible). Every time I did so the rows of petals would close up tightly over the stamen, first the inner row, then the next one out, then the next, and so on. The flower "ball" would then submerge. When it came back up it would rapidly open again and the flower interior would be completely dry. Wondering why this was happening I upended my 6' oar and pushed it straight down to determine the depth... and it didn't touch bottom. When I got home I did a little online research and discovered just how long the roots on these plants actually were. Man was I surprised; here's an image of their roots underwater, to give you an idea. next time I'm going to bring my little Canon Powershot D20 that can shoot underwater, down to 30 feet, so I can get those cool hidden images (We kayaked a lake in the Black Hills a couple months ago that had some of the most unusual underwater plants I've ever seen, and yep, I forgot that dang D20 again!).

This is quite nice; you captured the delicacy of the stamen, the contours of the pads, and even a stowaway ant(?). It must have traveled from pad to pad to get there.

Happy Trails

-Nik

Excellent lighting and composition, so enhancing the beauty of this water lily, Carol.
A perfect Foofy Friday image!

Carol, this is lovely, and I like that you captured a little critter as well, super close up. tigs=^..^=

Very nice shot of this lovely water lily with good focus, lighting and composition.

Great Capture Carol and just in time since this is the last lily to open - looks like a visitor is resting on the lower right petal!!!!!!!!!!!

Carol love the soft glow in the center exceptional work.

Rob

Gorgeous work.

Absolutely Stunning and right into my favs