Freaky Flowers: Echinopsis Cacti in Bloom from EchinopsisFreak on Vimeo:
A montage of a dozen types of Echinopsis cactus flowers blooming. And wilting. And just generally showing off their mind-blowing colors. My favorite cactus flowerings from the 2014 blooming season.
Echinopsis cactus flowers bloom overnight and the flowers last for only a day. Actually, the flowers are at their peak beauty for an hour or two at the most. That’s what turned me from a cactus enthusiast into a cactus photographer … the desire to try to preserve some aspect of their freaky beauty. Prior to becoming an Echinopsis addict a few years back, I had never owned a DSLR or image/video editing software.
The cacti shown in this video come from my collection. The evening when it looks like a plant’s flowers are about to bloom, I bring it indoors to image. Most of the clips in this montage show approximately 8 hours of change as the flowers open and bloom. A little more than halfway through the montage, there’s a series of three clips showing different views of a 24-hour period in the life of a yellow-flowered ‘Daydream’ plant. Six flowers that opened the night before I started filming wilt to nothingness and another 4 flowers grow dramatically and then open. This series of ‘Daydream’ clips is followed by another three showing other types of flowers wilting. These additional wilting clips are also taken over a daylong period.