I love photographing the water lilies and lotuses in the summer.  The water lilies are constantly in bloom through the summer and even into the early fall, but catching a lotus in bloom and in its prime entails a little bit of luck and timing. The blooms only seem to last a couple of days.  The other complicating factor is that water lilies and lotuses open mid-morning and by then the light can be harsh and unflattering.  It is important to wait for a day with cloud cover.  I was fighting a nasty summer cold last week and between that and the holiday weekend I missed almost a week of being at the Garden.  By Wednesday, I refused to stay in the house one more day and headed to the Garden to shoot.  The sky was a beautiful blue and filled with fluffy clouds, the temps in the 70's - a perfect day for shooting water lilies and lotuses.  I found this perfect lotus in full bloom in the Aquatic Garden of the Bulb Garden.  It was the subject of much adoration; many people stopped to look at it and photograph it and there was much oohing and aahing about its beauty. By the end of the afternoon I came home with 300+ images and almost each one worthy of keeping.  It took me longer to decide which of the bunch to process than it did to process them, and because the light was so magical they needed very little processing.

Here are a few from my lucky day...

Lotus Lotus   Lotus