Come a Little Bit Closer

The subject line is a Fleetwood Mac song reference for all you Christine McVie fans out there but it's also fitting for this post. I've been without my Nikon D40 camera for awhile now as two successive lens have gone awry and then I just wound up buying a Nikon Coolpix camera. It's an auto and it can't pick out a small object to perform its auto-focus function. I do have a zoom lens for my D40 however and today I took it out in the garden. The main problem is having to be at enough of a distance for the manual focus to focus properly and I don't possess the steadiest hands (I'm also without a tripod now). So keeping steady enough and eye-balling the manual focus is tricky and I got to the point of getting too frustrated so I stopped. I did however have some success today so here are the fruits of my labors. I love to shoot close-ups of individual flowers and that's what this set is.
Incidentally, for those of you who are on my friends list that I send the blog link to, there are two entries today so make sure to read the one that follows this entry.

Here's our 'butter yellow' Scabiosa mentioned in the following post (which has an intro on Pincushion flowers). S. ochroleuca is a vigorous little mid-summer to fall bloomer. The flowers aren't as large as other species but that color is so sweet.

Gloriosa lily. There's another photo and description in the following post but this is one of my favorite lilies and this shot caught it illuminated by the sun.

Cuphea Vienco. This variation on the Bat-faced cuphea has six 'ears' instead of two but has a similar purple 'snout.' Colorful and vigorous!

Here's a close-up of my Agastache foeniculum Golden Jubilee. The spikes are comprised of dozens of tiny purple flowers that the bees and hummers both love.

Scabiosa causcasia 'Fama Blue.' There's another shot in the following entry but my zoom let me get a closer look at this one flower.

Digiplexis 'Illumination Flame.' A closer shot of the hooded flowers. This close-up makes the golden throats even more apparent, contrasting nicely with the rosy-red exteriors.

Cuphea schumanii. This hard to find Cuphea's flowers are the same shape as C. ignea, only larger. It also features sturdier stems and definitely possesses an upright habit.

Over the years I've taken lots of photos of my exuberant Helenium 'Mardi Gras.' Here's one that captures a honey bee foraging for nectar, a common event on this plant.

There's a shot in the next post that captures the foliage of this Begonia Mocha Orange plant. Here I wanted to capture the brilliance of the orange flower, not an easy task for a camera as the color is so saturated.

Dudleya gnoma. Yes, as in Gnome. That's due to this being a dwarf variety. 

Lovers of true blue flowers know this plant, the bluest of all the Salvias (S. patens). It has one of the largest flowers in the genus as well, so good all around.

Tried to get a bit of back lighting on this Petunia. It looks as much painted as grown.