Alcea rosea 'Nigra' [Black Hollyhock]

[Andrea B.]

Blum, A.G. (2021) Alcea L. rosea 'Nigra' (Malvaceae) Black Hollyhock. Flowers photographed in ultraviolet, infrared and visible light. https://www.ultravio...lack-hollyhock/

 

 

La Secuela, Eldorado at Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

19 August 2021

Garden Cultivar

 

Comment:

The Black Hollyhock has an underlying deep, dark maroon visible color which can be seen in strong sunlight or in long photo exposures. It is one of the more UV-absorbing flowers I have ever photographed.

 

Reference:

1. Missouri Botanical Garden (acc 02 Sept 2021) Alcea rosea 'Nigra'. https://www.missouri...43&isprofile=0

 

 

Equipment [Nikon D610-broadband + Nikon 105mm f/4.5 UV-Nikkor]

 

 

Visible [f/16 for 2.5" @ ISO-100 in Ambient Skylight with Baader UV/IR-Cut + BG38 x 2.0 mm IR-Blocker]

 

 

Infrared [f/22 for 1.6" @ ISO-100 in Ambient Skylight with B+W 092 Infrared-Pass ]

 

 

Ultraviolet + Blue + Green [f/16 for 2.5" @ ISO-100 in Ambient Skylight with UG5 x 2.0 mm + S8612 x 2.0 mm]

 

 

Ultraviolet [f/16 for 2.5" @ ISO-100 in SB-140 UV-Flash with BaaderU UV-Pass Filter]

This flower is quite UV-absorbing. Maybe I should not have used a UV-absorbing background!

 

 

 

Visible [unresized crop from Visible photo above]

 

 

Ultraviolet [unresized crop from Ultraviolet photo above]

The detail in UV is amazing.

[colinbm]

Beautiful flower Andrea

[Andrea B.]

complete.

[dabateman]

Something looks off with the infrared image.

That UV one is very interesting.

[Andy Perrin]

Nice! I like the black background even with the dark flower.

[Andrea B.]

Something looks off with the infrared image.

 

Hmmmm......interesting.

The black velvet background is very strange in IR.

[Andrea B.]

The black velvet background caught a lot of light in the UV photo because the flower was so absorbing that I had to use 5 flashes from the SB-140 to get that exposure at f/16. But in the editor it was very difficult to select the background from the flower unless I wanted to go to a full layers & selection thing (which I don't like too much). So I eventually resorted to using a soft brush to clean up the background. Black-on-black can be tricky.

 

Very dramatic though.

[Doug A]

Awesome images Andrea. Can't pick a favorite. What a swing from black on black to white and light blue.

 

Thanks for sharing,

Doug A

[StephanN]

Love those pics

[ulf]

Love those pics

Me too.

The span of different image types and good close-up is very nice.