Illuminating the darkness! Sometimes natural light coming from various angles overhead isn't enough to sufficiently light our subjects and bring out their beauty. At times like this, we reach into our proverbial "bag of tricks."

These Tower of Jewels, Echium wildpretti, featured here at the Denver Botanic Garden, are native to the Canary Islands and need cool temperatures to flower. They take over two years to grow. The inflorescence, or stalk of tiny flowers, can reach approximately six feet and once it is finished flowering, the plant dies.

I wanted to show the view that greets one upon entering the Garden with the juxtaposition of the Tower of Jewels against the architecture of the Boettcher Memorial Tropical Conservatory.

The inflorescence was dark underneath, so I pulled out my 12 inch gold/silver reflector and directed some light up into the stalk nearest the camera.

Reflectors are an affordable, low-tech solution for occasional lighting issues like this.

Before image below without reflected light.

Hunt's Photo and Video offers both the 12 inch collapsible reflectors (silver on one side, gold on the other), as well as the 22 inch diffusers which I'll cover in a future blog.