Recently, I was at the Taj Samudra in Colombo and just as I was leaving the hotel, I saw this earthen pot filled with lotuses. They looked attractive, the pink flowers amidst the green leaves. Nowadays, I carry my camera kit whenever I travel, so I began clicking some pictures while the driver waited patiently. I was using a 90mm macro lens on my Canon 550D.
The first photo that I shot shows you how the flower looked to the naked eye.
It was early evening and the sun was about to set; I realized that some more light would help capture the flower's colors better. Believe me, I had no idea what the flash would reveal. Here's the next photo, from a similar distance as the earlier one but with the flash on.
Wow, I said aloud when I saw the photo on the camera screen. Amazing colors! The good thing about a macro lens is that you can get close to the subject. Let's see what the flower had hidden from most onlookers.
I have to admit that I got goose-bumps when I saw this through the viewfinder. I knew that I had to leave for the airport (having been warned about the evening traffic in Colombo), but I could not get away; one more, a little closer to capture this natural beauty.
Ah, what joy! A few colleagues were nearby, and I showed off these pictures like a kid with a new toy. They admired the pictures, but I knew that what we were enjoying was not about photography, it was about the beauty of nature all around us - often hidden till we take the effort to see it. The photos were just a mechanism of capturing nature's magic, for sharing and posterity.