ten minutes in the garden

I have a new camera and not enough hours in the day! Snatching a few minutes between hanging out washing and mopping the floor I managed to give my camera digit a little exercise! The sun was out and the red berries on the palm tree looked so beautiful.

When the camera first arrived I did take a long distant shot of the palm tree from the veranda but I thought it might look rather special taken from directly underneath it. Today I used the 18-55mm lens. I was lucky to get some blue in the sky and the sunlight on the berries because the wind was strong and only seconds later the sky was grey and sprinkling rain.

f/8 1/125 ISO 200 55mm

The next two shots - taken only a couple of minutes later - were taken when the sun was filtered by cloud. The Poinsettia grows freely in this part of the world and is a striking garden shrub. I have two varieties, the more common single red that is used as a decoration at Christmas time and this double - which I think is even more beautiful than its better known cousin.

f/5.6 1/50 sec ISO 125 55mm

The sun peeked out briefly as I crouched under the prickly leaves of the Cycad to take this shot of the flowers. This is the male plant and the female plant is in the back yard - it has a crown of a flower that will produce hundreds of chestnut sized seeds.

f/5.6 1/125 sec ISO 125 32mm

Although the cycad is an eye catching decorative plant it is one to be careful of - every frond on each leaf carries a vicious spine at the end and if it pierces the skin caused the wound to really ache painfully. The spines are about a centimetre long and wicked!

AJ