Zimbabwe Absurdity

There is nothing quite like a new camera to rekindle a lost interest! The new header, of what I am told are “Mexican marigolds” (Tagetes lucida), are part of a nascent project suggested some time ago by my Canadian friend Terry. He said he’d appreciate a calendar of seasonal flowers of Zimbabwe. I’m pretty sure I don’t have the resources to put out a glossy one but I have an idea to put out a single sheet calendar of a flower for every 3 months and give it out to customers for next year. Even if I cannot afford it, it will be fun to set myself the task of photographing the flowers. The Mexican marigolds are about half the depicted size.

Here’s another that I captured yesterday evening walking with Jenni. I’ve no idea what it’s called!

Backlit flower in acacia

The lens I have came bundled with the camera and was not my first choice as it does not have a great macro but it is a good general purpose lens (18 – 105mm). So one day I’ll get a good macro lens…

I did dither a lot about buying this camera; South Africa is expensive for electronics but I was becoming very frustrated with my “old” compact. I could not even find a new flash card for it because at four years it is just –  OLD! I have given my old film camera, one of the best that Nikon ever made, to a young friend at university in South Africa. 15 rolls of film went with it too – I couldn’t bear to see it wasted!

The cosmos comes in shades of pink and white as depicted. It’s not a native flower. I am told it was introduced in horse feed for the British army around the time of the Anglo-Boer war in South Africa (early 1900’s) and has made it’s way up here. It can certainly be seen thoughout the sub-region from February to now and can be quite spectacular by the roadsides. Commercial varieties have shades of red and maroon too.

Cosmos on a fence