Well, that came around fast. My PESO shot for Sun 11 Sep 22 was taken at the final opening of the Illawarra Grevillea Park in Bulli for 2022, which was at the start of that year's Spring. The park does not open to visitors over the Summer, and would not reopen until... today, the final month of Autumn.

That's 7 months.

Seven.

No, I have not processed all of the photos from the earlier shoot. Barely any of them, in fact, and I have posted only one. When I have unprocessed photos dating back to when I started doing trips away in the mid-2000s, this should not surprise you.

Still... 7 months.

Today 4 of us went to the Garden. Normally two of us carry cameras. Today, only I did.

"What, no camera?", I asked incredulously.
"It's in the car."
"But, but...", I explained, "You can do zoomey stuff on the plants!"

And indeed you can. Many of my regular visitors know that I do have a 60mm macro lens. It's not a bad lens, in some ways a good lens, though I don't like it as much as my old Canon 60mm from my 40D days which was outstanding. If you're doing a macro session and nothing but a macro session, a dedicated macro lens is fine. If you're out in the field and plan to capture a variety of subjects, it's better to use a faux macro weapon. Last September that was of course my long range photon interceptor, the 40-150 f/2.8 Pro, the finest damn piece of vitreous weaponry ever created by any brand ever, in my view. Zoomed all the way in, when you get up close to the target you can certainly get a macro effect.

But today? Since I'm still learning to work with it, my multi-role, all-purpose lens, the 12-100 f/4 Pro, got a hitout to see how it would do. I can't say that I'm disappointed. Nope, not disappointed at all.

So yes, I can still do zoomey stuff, even when I deploy my reserve equipment to the front line.

Ah, I've neglected to tell you what this is. As I mentioned in last year's shot, "Grevilleas are commonly known as "spider flowers" because many of the 360ish species (almost all of which are Australian-based) have spider leg like projections from their flowers". This specific one is a Grevillea Amber Blaze cultivar, a cultivar being (for those who lack a green thumb) a cultivated plant which has developed selected, desired characteristics. The Grevillea Amber Blaze is a short variety, growing to about 1 to 1.5 metres tall but potentially spreading outwards to 2 to 3 metres, making it useful as a feature shrub, or something that can cascade over a wall, for example. The flowers are vibrant golden orange, as we see here.

I elected to go somewhat macro on its backside to give it a semi-abstract feel, though this specific frame was pulled back a bit (quite a bit; to only 57mm) to give it the necessary context.