This week’s photo of the week is a little special in that it co-incides with my camera’s first birthday. Well, rather with the first anniversary of the day it arrived.

Anyhow, last week’s photo of the week served as an example of how some of your best shots come from pure chance. You see an opportunity and you shoot, no planning, no preparation just a spur of the moment capture. This week’s photo of the week is pretty much the complete opposite. This is the culmination of an extended effort to capture the beauty of the flower spikes of the Horse Chestnut tree.

These flowers proved hard to capture well because of their subtle detail and dazzling white colour. They are mostly white but the centre of each flower is either pink or yellow and you get both colours within the one flowering stalk. There is also a veritable sea of stamens sticking out at all angles which must be captured too.

I tried quite a few different approaches until I finally got this shot last Thursday. It captures all the details of the flowers as well as the wonderfully majestic leaves. You should look at the larger version to really see the detail in the flowers.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again!

Click to Enlarge

For those of you interested in such things here are some of the technical details of the shot:

• Camera: Nikon D40
• Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
• Exposure: 1/1250 sec
• Focal Length: 200mm
• Focal Ratio: F8
• ISO: 400
• Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
• Exposure Compensation: -0.67

[tags]Photography, Maynooth, Ireland, Horse Chestnut, tree, flower[/tags]