Bulbophyllum breviscapum aka lasiochilum, hard to photograph
 

Because of my modest level of photographing skills, taking a good photo of this orchid has proven a vexing challenge. The flower has so many folds, bends, waxy twisted and shiny parts sticking everywhich way that no matter what I do some part comes in the shade or overexposed or out of focus. And don't get me started on the hairs of the hinged lip, if I try to get in focus those the other parts look blurry. So I took a side photo that maybe is not that great but highlight most of the interesting bits of this exotic, otherworldy looking flower. Oh, yes, yes I know about f-stops and tripods and light exposure and stuff, but macro photography is tricky, hopefully I will get better at it.http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2779/...195d488a_o.jpg

Looks crisp and detailed to me! An amazing flower!

Thank you for your kind words. It not a totally bad photo but when I see some of the stunningly detailed and crisply focused macro photos on some of the Internet forums I yearn to take photos like those. Perhaps in time and after taking a few hundred thousands of photos I will get a better handle of macro photography. However I am starting to think that some of the best ones owe their startling quality to the application of some judicious tweaking with image managing programs.

To echo Kim, your photo looks crisp and detailed to me as well. Very cool capture of an intriguing flower. Is it one to be admired with a clothespin on the nose? :;)

I tried to smell the flower and detected a slight sweet fragrance, however since there is a Stanhopea panamensis and a Brassia Rex nearby both flooding the area with their fragrances I am not sure it came from the Bulbophyllum flower. Also the fact that I have a cold doesn't help with my fragrance detection skills. Anyway, if it has an offensive smell I have never detected it. Even if it indeed has a putrid smell it clearly isn't in the roadkill rat left to fester in the sun league of Bulb, echinolabium.

Here's a photo of mine, taken a few years ago,
 

Or mine

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2572/...a0239a91_o.jpg

Wonderful photos!