Well, so do I…  Written descriptions of crosses and pictures in orchid catalogs and on the internet can be a nightmare to the uninitiated.

The written description of a cross can seem deceiving once you see the cross actually start to flower. It is wise to look at the printed description of a cross as a ‘goal’ the hybridizer had in mind when deciding to make the cross. More often than not it is just a guess. On my website I do try to avoid superlatives and hyperbole in the written descriptions. Even those I have already seen bloom and think are great. Keep in mind, I want to sell the plants…

Seedlings from the same cross can be as different from each other as human brothers and sister who share the same two parents.  The following three pictures were taken of three different seedlings from the cross of Phal. Feria x Culiacan.  I had close to 100 of these seedlings and each had its own special look.

Surprises will be the norm, especially if you only saw one picture example of a particular cross bloom.  I am going to use the nicest example I have seen bloom and I may not have seen the real winner bloom yet.  Pictures on my website are often chosen from among the first handful to flower out of several hundred offspring.

Pictures can be deceiving…even unintentionally. Below are two photos of the same flower. One was taken in early afternoon midwinter daylight and the other was taken by the light of one of my 1000 watt metal halides.

Personally I enjoy picking up a plant and carrying it around to different light sources and watching the apparent color of the flower change.

I have watched orchid judges run outside with a flower so they can see what it looks like in “real” light.

My favorite time of day to photograph for red is during the early morning hours on a sunny summer day when the natural light is very high in yellow wavelengths and gives anthocyanin pigments in the flower a more red appearance to my eye…and with any luck to the camera’s circuits.

Colors will also change when the same picture is viewed from a different monitor. I always get a bit freaked out when I see my website on somebody else’s computer. Usually other computers make my website look hyper colorful.

“So,” you ask, “what’s the real color of the flower in this picture below?” “Well,” I answer, “first, I am red/green colorblind.  And second, my coloring box only has 8 crayons in it…(there is no “Scarlet”, “Brick”, “Watermelon”, “Sunset”, etc.) so my guess would be it is red.”

One Response to “So You Have Issues With Orchid Pictures and Written Descriptions?”