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13 Wednesday Jul 2022
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09 Saturday Jul 2022
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Since 2014, I have been going to the Lotus Pond in Carnegie Center in Princeton, NJ every summer to photograph its beautiful Lotus flowers and the bees and dragonflies that flew over the pond. Unfortunately, last year all the Lotus plants died or were killed for some unknown reason and the Lotus Pond is no more. It is just a small pond with water but no vegetation growing in or on it.
The photos below show the flowers at their best eight years ago in 2014. I have reprocessed some of them using newer software, while other photos have never been published before.
This is how the Lotus Pond looked at its prime.
11 Wednesday Aug 2021
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Around this time of the year, I’ve been going to photograph lotus flowers at a small pond at the Carnegie Center in Princeton, NJ. In previous years the pond used to have beautiful lotus flowers blooming in July and August. This year all the lotus plants have wilted and turned brown as if struck by some disease. The pond looked terrible. Was it some fungal disease that attacked the lotus? Were the plants left to die intentionally? There was no one around to ask questions.
Here are some shots of the flowers I took on July 25, 2020.
08 Wednesday Aug 2018
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in25 Wednesday Jul 2018
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in22 Sunday Jul 2018
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inWe are entering a week when it is going to rain every day. Yesterday morning, however, the sun was out and I arrived at the Lotus pond in time to see the first rays of sun fall on the flowers.
15 Saturday Jul 2017
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inThis morning started with fog, followed by rain, then finally sunshine. After making sure the sun was there to stay, I went to the lotus pond near our house to photograph this year’s flowers. There were not many yet, it’s still too early for them.
There were many dragonflies flying around the pond. The Eastern Amberwings darted here and there, their orange color contrasting sharply with the green lotus leaves.
20 Saturday Aug 2016
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carnegie center, dragonfly, hosta, lotus, photography, postaday
Today I took a quick trip to the lotus pond in early morning, when it was still not too hot. The flowers were mostly gone, with fewer than a dozen left, like this one below.
There were many pods, some filled with large seeds, right next to flower buds still trying to bloom.
Nearby, in deep shade, hosta flowers were in full bloom. The buds were white and a pale lavender at the tips.
Finally, the dragonflies were as plentiful as ever. I tried to snap a few shots of some that were flying and buzzing around from end of the pond to the other, but nothing came out well. Finally, I had to settle for a stationary Blue Dasher basking in the warm sun.
15 Monday Aug 2016
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inIt’s been a month since my last trip to the lotus pond. I’ve been meaning to go back and take more pictures, but haven’t done so yet, mainly because it’s been so hot.
The following photo is a monochrome version of a shot taken last month. Since the flower is white, it lends itself easily to this b&w treatment.
17 Sunday Jul 2016
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At the height of summer, a trip to the lotus pond near our home has become an annual event for me. The pond is not too large but well maintained, endowed with many white and pink lotus flowers. There are plenty of shade trees around it to protect photographers from the sun and the heat. This morning, at the golden hour I went there and “owned” the pond for a half hour before others arrived. All of the flowers were white, as the pink ones usually bloom as much as two weeks later.
For the following photos I used two Canon lenses: a 180 mm macro lens and a 400 mm lens, both reputed to be among the sharpest lenses with excellent colors.
10 Sunday Jul 2016
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inThe Lotus flowers have started to bloom. This morning there were only two flowers that had opened up, but I still managed to take quite a few shots, especially with bees and dragonflies hovering and flitting near them.
03 Monday Aug 2015
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This past weekend, the lotus pond only had a few lotus flowers that were not white. The red and pink lotuses provided a vivid and beautiful contrast to the white and green of the rest of the pond.
15 Wednesday Jul 2015
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inSome more photos of white lotus flowers at a pond near home.
13 Monday Jul 2015
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inThe lotus pond is only about five miles from our house. At the beginning of summer, it has mostly white flowers, and the red or pink ones don’t bloom until several weeks later. Yesterday the pond looked very green still, with not too many flowers.
The bees of course were very busy and at times there were several on a single flower.
A dilemma I have is that so many shots came out that were just as nice looking as the above. I didn’t want to clutter this page with too many shots, and thus slow down the display of this page. But if you want to see more of these white lotus photos, let me know in your comments and I’ll post some more on the next post.