Our arrival in Sissu happened to coincide with the blooming of the Himalayan summer cactus. One morning, I spent 45 minutes photographing these impressive flowers. The plant itself is actually kind of strangly and not particularly attractive, but up close the blooms are quite beautiful.
Taking the shot was difficult because there is so much that has to be kept in focus here. A long depth of field (i.e. small aperture) is a must, because an out of focus spike really detracts from the image. Unfortunately, the single greatest limitation of my camera is that it's smallest aperture setting is F8, which normally would be only medium depth of field.
The one real unfortunate thing about taking a picture of cactus is that you tend to be in the desert. I'd prefer something other than the bland grayish background, but these things grow in sand, and the flower faces up. Hence, you've got to shoot from above onto the sand. There's no good way around it without throwing something in as false background, which perhaps I should've considered.
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