Chit Chat for the April Photography Contest

[fred]

If you have any comments in regards to any of the April competition photos please use this thread

thank you

[dorothea]

i'm really new here and i have to learn a lot about orchids and photography, but i just wanted to share a picture of my orchids i look at when i study for my exams . this took me a long time to arrange for best angles on plants.

[benetay]

Great picture! Certainly not a novice & i have no flowers in bloom at the moment for me to see when i study for my exams too!

Sigh!

Cheers!

[Plucky Purcell]

Wheeeeee! I'll actually be able to enter this month! If you look at my history on this forum you'll find that my join date was 6-13-08 but my first post wasn't until 3-4-09. Now, a person might ask why. First, as is my usual way in any new group, I like to keep my mouth shut until I feel that I've learned enough to know what questions I really have to ask (I want to start a religion called "The Church of the Correct Question." There is no such thing as a bad question but there are incorrect questions, questions that don't actually result in the knowledge you're seeking.) and second, I've been waiting for my 'chids to rebloom so I can post in the photo comp. It just felt like cheating to enter a pic of an orchid that I bought in bloom. With any luck my little paph. NoID I bought last August should open in the next couple of weeks. I can't wait!

[Tarad]

Nice pic Dorothea!


Plucky P ...Your right no question is stupid question! So will you have blooms this month? I have about 4 phals blooming right now and young nieces asking if they can have one for the prom etc is they are blooming!

[dorothea]

thanks Tarad, i like your picture too.

Plucky, i also didn't want to enter the competition before i rebloom one of my phals, but i had my 'mini mark' for some time now, and when i got it it didn't have flowers, just buds, so i'm proud it opened and kept all of its flowers. little noid came in sphag so i repotted it in bark while in bloom and it grew another bud and branch since then. so i think i'm getting better at growing orchids (the first one drowned)

[Tarad]

I have had mine since last spring and managed to get spikes adn blooms, for me the trick will be to do it again!! Then more pics hopefully better ones though by then gotta learn how to use the camera :-/ Tara

[kmarch]

dorothea, your Phal Mini Mark is GIMONGOUS!!! (delightfully large) It's easily one of the 4 or 5 biggest ones I've ever seen. So many spikes and flowers! It's great!

Just one little correction on the name though, Mini Mark is the grex or hybrid name and should appear in capital letters with no quotation marks like this: Phal Mini Mark. The single quotation marks are for cultivar names like this: Phal Mini Mark 'Holm'.

Thanks for posting!

[Sharyn]

Prettiest Phal Mini Mark I've ever seen!

[dorothea]

thanks kmarch, i'm sure i'll get the name right next time

i think it has almost 50 flowers (i counted few days ago), and i think it grew a bit since i got it.

[fred]

Plucky P
there is no such thing as a dumb question on "geeks"
just for the record if any member buys an orchid in bloom you are able to enter a pic of the bloom the only rule about that is one has to own the orchid
if you buy an orchid in bloom you can enter the comp ( the plant is owned by you )
so yep it can be entered

[Tarad]

Thanks for clearing that up Fred Oboy oboy more pics !! Tara

[Plucky Purcell]

I should have clarified: I'm a strange bird. I set all kinds of narrow rules for myself, rules that I expect no one but me to live by. (If you want a giggle, I could tell you my rules for convenience stores. It's a good list, compiled during my 5 years as a clerk.) I'm a Virgo and have the usual Virgo anal-retentiveness and perfectionism. This comes out in many of the things that I do and is actually very helpful for my work (As a machinist I have to be anal about specs). I assumed, and was backed up when I read the comp rules, that I could take a picture of any orchid under my care but for my own personal satisfaction I wanted to wait until I had a re-bloom to photograph. I'm just silly that way. Regardless, thank you for the clarification Fred.

[-k-]

Lol... Virgo here too, we must suffer from the same affliction!

[dorothea]

Originally Posted by Plucky Purcell

I should have clarified: I'm a strange bird. I set all kinds of narrow rules for myself, rules that I expect no one but me to live by. (If you want a giggle, I could tell you my rules for convenience stores. It's a good list, compiled during my 5 years as a clerk.) I'm a Virgo and have the usual Virgo anal-retentiveness and perfectionism. This comes out in many of the things that I do and is actually very helpful for my work (As a machinist I have to be anal about specs). I assumed, and was backed up when I read the comp rules, that I could take a picture of any orchid under my care but for my own personal satisfaction I wanted to wait until I had a re-bloom to photograph. I'm just silly that way. Regardless, thank you for the clarification Fred.

i understood that, but i also felt the need to explain why i didn't wait for one of my "just salad" phals to rebloom.

[Tarad]

Dorthea your Mini Mark makes the one I bought look really miniscule, ya know I think yours should no longer fall into the mini category as wow it is a monster mini Tara

[dorothea]

Tarad, i'm glad you like it it's one of my favorites too

[Sharyn]

dorothea: I have NEVER seen a Mini Mark with so many spikes -- made my heart drop. I thought you had this plant for years and years. You are the absolute envy of every Phal Mini Mark lover! What a spectacular phal..................now, I just wish we could all find one with so many spikes.

Plucky: Ahhhhh, you Virgo you! Come on, post a picture. We don't care if it's not your own re-bloom or PERFECT!!!! We just love pictures of what we're growing. p.s. I'm an Aires, so a little bossy.

[dorothea]

Sharyn, actually I envy you all because you can get a variety of species and hybrids, while all I can find are noid phals (I'm not saying I don't like them, I just became more picky). the problem is, my country still hasn't joined the EU, so I can't order plants from nice German or UK online stores. or even if I could, the delivery and fitocertificate would cost me 3 times more than plants.

this is the only time I ever found registered hybrids in one of our stores (Mini Mark and Elegant Debora, the other two I can't track down) - orchid days in one of the harware and garden stores. there were only few of them and I thought it was one of the smallest phals I've ever seen (obviously I was wrong).

[Jirel]

Plucky, I had my horoscope done one time. We usually go by our sun signs, well - my sun is in Virgo, my moon is in Virgo and I have a third Virgo, I think its Mars in Virgo but I don't remember for sure other than that I'm a triple Virgo. Which explains why I became a computer programmer and then went on to be a Systems Analyst. LOL! Of course now I'm "retired".

[Plucky Purcell]

Dorothea: I don't know how I missed looking at your location but it brings a smile 'cause my name is Croatian. (My real name, not my online pseudonym.) Nice to meet you! That Mini Mark is something else!

I try not to believe in astrology but I can't deny that EVERY Virgo I've ever known well is a little anal around the edges. To make it worse, in Chinese astrology I'm a Earth Sheep, which is also known to be overly organized and analytical. I got it coming and going!

[dorothea]

Plucky, I thought you wrote somewhere your name is Jason? how did you get a Croatian name?

[Plucky Purcell]

The last name: Johovich. My grandpa was from Croatia. (From what I remember of the family history he and his parents came to California when he was just a kid.)

[dorothea]

I suppose it was Johović before cool. i just googled it and it seems the name is mostly found around Karlovac, town near Zagreb (link probably wouldnt meen much to you since it is in Croatian)

sorry for the off topic, but I hope it can be tolerated a bit since it is in the chit chat thread

[Plucky Purcell]

That's cool. Nice to know.

It's funny how names get Americanized. I've got a friend who grandfather came from Germany and at Ellis Island they changed his name from "Wangerstien" to "Wang". I still giggle thinking about it.

[dorothea]

when I was in the US, most of people had trouble pronouncing my last name - Veić (American version would be Veich, like yours). I think the biggest problem was the letter ć, they thought it was an acent so they moved it to i

[Plucky Purcell]

I can always tell when it's a telemarketer on the phone because they can never pronounce it right. I understand if they pronounce it like it's spelled (My family pronounces it like Johovick) but what always gets me is when they add letters.


"Is Mr. Ja-hon-o-veech there?"

"Nope! No one here by that name!"

[Orchidementia]

Originally Posted by Plucky Purcell

I can always tell when it's a telemarketer on the phone because they can never pronounce it right. I understand if they pronounce it like it's spelled (My family pronounces it like Johovick) but what always gets me is when they add letters.

My last name is un-spellable or unpronounceable to most people, probably because it's hyphenated (and Welsh, but very Anglicized). My husband's name is even worse - very German with consonants and vowels banged together in ways they don't go in English. Most people who encounter it just stare at it and cry.

[dorothea]

mine was pronounced Veek, Vek, Vich or combination of all three but never right. and when I said Hrvatska (Croatia), few people ever tried to pronounce it right

[dorothea]

Originally Posted by Orchidementia

My last name is un-spellable or unpronounceable to most people, probably because it's hyphenated (and Welsh, but very Anglicized). My husband's name is even worse - very German with consonants and vowels banged together in ways they don't go in English. Most people who encounter it just stare at it and cry.

I speak German, although not as well as English, and I noticed it is much easier for me to pronounce words in German than in English, maybe because we also have weird combination of consonants (like crv, prst, vrt - these are all words )

[Orchidementia]

And I've grown up around a language where "ll" is pronounced by putting the tip of the tongue slightly off center on the hard palate and hissing, so his letter-soup name didn't phase me, but I kept my own weird name!

Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon!

Pob hwyl!

[dorothea]

Originally Posted by Orchidementia

And I've grown up around a language where "ll" is pronounced by putting the tip of the tongue slightly off center on the hard palate and hissing, so his letter-soup name didn't phase me, but I kept my own weird name!

Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon!

Pob hwyl!

since google is my friend, I now know what you wrote and find Welsh very interesting

[dorothea]

iaith is language? hm, that is similar to Croatian word jezik, which would mean the same

[Plucky Purcell]

I may be hooked on orchids right now, but language, and literature, is one of my first loves. I find it immensely satisfying how elastic language is.

[kmarch]

It never ceases to amaze me how even the most straight-forward names can get slaughtered. My last name is March, just like the month, and every time I give my name I say just that, "March, just like the month." About 3/4 of the time it gets written down as "Marsh". MARSH!?!?!?! What month is called MARSH!?!?! 2 days ago I was having to give my name over the phone and I said, "March, just like the month" and the guy said back to me, "so that's M - O - E - ..." I didn't let him get any further. I figure I had to stop him before he started adding the Gs and Ls.

And by the way....I just have to say again how delicious and drool-worthy that Mini Mark is. Yum....

[jay]

I used to get 2 pieces of the same junk mail with two different spellings of my last name. My last name is Yasuda. When I give it to someone I spell it out very slowly, but for some reason at least 40% of the time when I say "Y" they type "W".

Telemarketers like to add letters to my name like Yasunda, Yashuda, Wasuda. The list goes on.

I don't have many Phals, but that Mini Mark would be an instant addition if I saw it in a store. I also wouldn't hesitate posting pictures of that beauty.

[dorothea]

I don't know why, but everybody just falls in love with Mini Mark when they see it it happened for me too

[Tarad]

I bought a Mini Mark at Christmas for myself and paypal accidentally sent it to my Mom in a different city because once a long time ago her address was in my ship to account after sending her a gift. My Mom has my Mini Mark waiting for me to pick it up. She lives about 2 1/2 hours away. I am sure it is potted in dirt in a big ol pot way too big for it, but I hear it is still alive Tara

[Plucky Purcell]

OOCece: What a fantastic Paph! Beautiful photography, too!

[OOCece]

Plucky, Thanks for the compliment. I can't take credit for growing it, just shooting it. It was grown by Al's Orchid Greenhouse in Leesburg VA (I hope its ok to say that). I told Al he had a green thumb and he told me no I have a GreenHOUSE! He cracks me up!

When I was little I lived in Massachusetts near Plymouth and used to play in the woods and it was always a treat to see a Lady Slipper. I'm not sure if these are remotely the same plant but I got it because it reminded me of my childhood even though I know this type hails from Southern Asia. Its a small world I suppose!

I hope I can keep it going.

[OOCece]

Powderblue, Your photos are lovely. Can you tell me what you used to shoot the pink one. Did you use any special light set up? Always trying to learn more.

[psyc1210]

Dorothea, is your Mini Mark cultivar name 'Holm', or 'Maria Teresa'?

Also, OOcece, is the Phal in your avatar a Phal Fantasy Musick?

[dorothea]

Tarad, I'm sure when you take your Mini Mark home it will appreciate it and bloom for you

psyc1210, it didn't say, just Mini Mark (I'm not sure that is possible, since there is always one of the cultivars )

beautiful pictures everyone!

[kmarch]

It's possible that it could be correctly without a cultivar name and therefore just Phal Mini Mark, but as this hybrid has been so popular and so extensively mericloned I would be surprised. It's possible though. If it is one of the named cultivars I'd think it probably is not 'Holm' because the segments (petals and sepals) are fairly wide on that clone making the flowers quite full.

[OOCece]

JoBeth,
I don't know what it is. I wanted to buy it and my guy wouldn't sell it. It actually looks alot like the one in Dorothea's avatar but mine was more pink and hers looks more Orange. It was on a stem with alot of other cute little blossoms and it was either in a basket or on a mount I can't remember. So cute!

[benetay]

I love the Phal OOCece, certainly stunning! Great photography too.

Cheers!

[myorchid]

Jacqui

Beautiful entries this month! I love the group shot!

[hulaorchid]

Thanks April!!

Amersault- love the cym!!
Please forgive my spelling. I did not have the tag when I posted the paph!

[Tarad]

Hi all, I forgot to put the name of my two phals in my first entry of the April contest...

The spotted one- Brother Redland Spot AM/AOS
The Dark Maroon one- Ever Spring Sun and Moon Am/AOS

Tara

[hulaorchid]

Tara I'm glad you entered your new phal pict. I really like it!!!

[LouisW]

Good ones this month, and finally I have something to enter.

I hold myself to the same standards Plucky. I dont want to show off a plant unless I made the flowers happen.

And im going to jump on the "that Phal Mini Mark is awsome!" bandwagon!

[digitalgate]

Originally Posted by kmarch

It never ceases to amaze me how even the most straight-forward names can get slaughtered. My last name is March, just like the month, and every time I give my name I say just that, "March, just like the month." About 3/4 of the time it gets written down as "Marsh". MARSH!?!?!?!
And by the way....I just have to say again how delicious and drool-worthy that Mini Mark is. Yum....

my name get even more interesting. The first name is How... as in how do you do. It end up became Howdy...

[Tarad]

THanks Jacqui! This month in particular are so many cool pics, I dont envy the judge, it will be a toughy to pick Tara

[Plucky Purcell]

Tom F: What a fantastic shot of your Sharry Baby! I'm super jealous. I've got two spikes on one of mine and just can't wait for that sweet aroma to fill the house!

[exasperatus2002]

Originally Posted by Plucky Purcell

Dorothea: I don't know how I missed looking at your location but it brings a smile 'cause my name is Croatian. (My real name, not my online pseudonym.) Nice to meet you! That Mini Mark is something else!

I try not to believe in astrology but I can't deny that EVERY Virgo I've ever known well is a little anal around the edges. To make it worse, in Chinese astrology I'm a Earth Sheep, which is also known to be overly organized and analytical. I got it coming and going!

I know how you feel. Im a Leo almost to a fault. (8/20/75)

[Orchidementia]

Originally Posted by digitalgate

my name get even more interesting. The first name is How... as in how do you do. It end up became Howdy...

My last name is two names; the last one is Pace. It gets spelled: Page, Paste, Pate, Pax (points for trying with that one, although the root meaning of mine has to do with the Vernal equinox and not Peace).

My first name is Rachel (RAY-chell, not ruh-SHELL) . It gets spelled, and I'm not kidding: Lisa, Gretchen, Heidi, Rachelle, Ratschelle...

[exasperatus2002]

Originally Posted by Orchidementia

My last name is two names; the last one is Pace. It gets spelled: Page, Paste, Pate, Pax (points for trying with that one, although the root meaning of mine has to do with the Vernal equinox and not Peace).

My first name is Rachel (RAY-chell, not ruh-SHELL) . It gets spelled, and I'm not kidding: Lisa, Gretchen, Heidi, Rachelle, Ratschelle...

I work in customer service helping people over the phone. My greeting is usually "thank you for holding, my name is Scott, How may I help you". If I had a quarter for every person who then said "thank you Todd"......I'd own the AOS.

[FUO213]

oooo i will enter in this. They hybrid phal i bought it just starting to open