Fuchsia fjuːʃə/ FEW-shə

Around two years ago, I was in the Achamore gardens on the island of Gigha. I was still new to my Nikon D50, and was looking for things to photograph. Amongst other things in the unique Achamore Gardens, a bright pink flower caught my eye, and I snapped it. Looking back I now feel it was a very clumsy attempt at a "macro" or a close up photograph.


Neither could I recognise a Fuchsia when I saw one.

Sadly, I am still to become an expert in macro, which in itself is a specialised form of photography. I tried my hand at this form of photography which involves photographing objects from very close up - few inches. You can see some of the photos in my Flickr photostream. Purists will object to me calling them macros, because they lack a few features of macros. First, they don't have a ratio of 1:1 i.e. the objects are larger than the camera sensor. Secondly, my lens, a standard kit 18 - 55 mm AF Nikkor, is not quite a 'macro' lens. If you are one of them purists, dear reader, please erase my name from the list of macro practitioners, and demote me to the ranks of a humble amateur photogrpaher.

The Glasgow and District Fuchsia Society held their Annual show in the Kibble palace , The Botanics, Glasgow. This was my opportunity to try out close up photography. The show had a wonderful collection of Fuchsias.
I have since then done some research on Fuchsias. I started with the spelling, which according to a website is often misspelt as 'Fuschia'. See the pronounciation as well, as in the title. In case you are wondering what the last letter'ə' means, it is meant to be pronounced a as in sofa. There are around 13 150 named varieties of Fuchsias. Fuchsias were named after the yonder intense looking gentleman, Fullmaurer Leonhart Fuchs, a physician who was one of the 'founding fathers' of botany, no less.

Below are a selection of photos from that show. I have a lot more in my Flckr photostream (link on the right).
Hope you like them. I certainly enjoyed the whole experience, and will certainly aim to do more of this. If you are still reading, dear macro purist, I hope to hoodwink my wife someday and buy a proper macro lens, God willing, a brand new Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8D.................. sigh..................Or at least a Nikon AF Micro - Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D.

Are you listening, Santa?