Young spiders

click photo to enlarge

Our New Zealand Flax (Phormium) suffered greatly during the recent very cold winter. Two of the four plants died and the other two came close to death. The deceased pair have been removed - a job for shears and an axe - but the others retained living leaves in their centres and have produced more during April and May: I'm hopeful that they'll make a complete recovery.

The discarding of two such large plants has left a big space in one of the borders that has had to be filled with small shrubs and annuals. The remaining two have halved in size due to the drying out of dead leaves and the fact that we've pulled off those that were loose. It was when she was inspecting these that my wife spotted the young spiders. They'd recently hatched and were clustered on a tangle of extremely thin webs stretched between some of the flax leaves. There was nothing elegant or artistic about the web; functionality was the only consideration in its construction. It was probably the low morning light catching the webs that caught her eye and she came into the house to suggest it to me as the subject for a photograph.

I took several shots using the macro lens, with and without the tripod, with the sun at the side and into the sun. The small creatures seemed to prefer to be in a cluster, a group that was about the size of my finger nail. However, when I touched it they spread radially, like a slow-motion expolosion, giving me a couple of different compositions. Out of the three photographs that I've posted I like the dark shot against the light best, though the other two please me as well.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographic droughts and New Zealand Flax

click photo to enlarge
Sometimes I go through a photographic "dry period", a time when I point the camera at what should be a fertile subject, but produce nothing that I like. It's been a bit like that for me lately. The danger when you enter such a phase is that you start to look harder, to widen your search area, to go to places you know to be productive of good images. Well, that might work for some people, but it doesn't work for me.

I've said before in this blog that when you can't find photographs it's a good idea to stop looking for them: that way they're quite likely to find you. And so it proved today. We've been extending our vegetable plot recently. When we'd finished turning over the soil my wife went to thin the raspberry canes and I took the wheelbarrow to cut the flower spikes off a couple of the New Zealand flaxes. These tall stems, six to eight feet high, flowered some time ago and now have long seed pods. The weight of these makes the spikes angle downwards and look quite unsightly. So I began lopping them off and filling the wheelbarrow. As I tipped the first load I looked again at the stems I'd chopped and was struck by the interesting mixture of colours. When seen singly, poking up through the "architectural" leaves of the flax they weren't very striking, but in a bundle they were quite beautiful. So, when I went back to my lopping I carefully selected a few colourful, well-marked sections, laid them together on the garden table and took a few shots. The green, purple, red and blue of the stems next to the brown of the dying leaves makes an image that pleases me. And I'm all the happier because the image sought me out rather than the other way round!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro, (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

New Zealand Flax

click photo to enlarge

The early European explorers of New Zealand gave the plant known to the native Maori people as Harakeke, the name New Zealand Flax (Phormium tenax). They were intrigued by the way the Maoris processed the leaves of the plant to produce a fibrous material suitable for clothing, and it reminded them of the European flax (Linum usitatissimum). In fact, the two plants are quite different species, the antipodean variety being closely related to day lilies (Hemerocalis).

As well as clothing, New Zealand's indigenous people used the flax for baskets, eel traps, nets, cord, mats, sandals, bags and many other purposes including medicinal. The plant continues to be harvested today for the manufacture of high quality hand-made paper. However, it is principally as an ornamental plant that New Zealand Flax is most valued. Architects like it for its size and presence: developers value its "modernity" and durability. A single plant can be 4 metres across, with leaves usually 1 to 2.5 metres long, and flower spikes as tall as 4 to 5 metres. About 75 cultivars are currently grown, coming in a range of colours from almost purple, through light and dark green, brown, reddish-green, variegated, and with stripes of yellow, white or red.

The photograph shows two rain-spattered leaves - one young, and one more mature - from the same plant in my garden . I think it is an example of the variety known as "Alison Blackman", though as usual, if anyone knows that to be wrong, please get in touch.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On