Every year from May to early July, the lotus flowers bloom in the ponds along Jhongsing Village’s Shengfu Road. The lotus ponds attract an abundance of visitors from around the area. It is quite common on weekends to see a cluster of photographers and their tripods taking multiple shots of a single specimen while several other enthusiasts wait behind for an opening to step forward and compose a shot or thirty.
Luckily for me, the ponds are located just off the route I take to work every morning. Recently, I was able to spend a few minutes there before clocking in. Although I’ve taken photographs here several times in previous years, I always manage to come back with something different.
As of writing this, the ponds still look spectacular, which will probably warrant a second visit before all the flowers wither away.
Previous trips to Jhongsing Village’s Lotus Ponds: 2011, 2010 and 2008.
The Daily Bubble Tea 
It’s splendid!
The way you worked on the colors and the contrasts of these pictures is awesome. Thanks for sharing!
You should make wallpapers out of these, I know Ubuntu (the Linux Operating System) would be great with such a wallpaper 🙂
Thanks Pierre!
I’m not much of a wallpaperist, though.
Gorgeous! Magnificent! Creative!
Thank! You! Mercifulwords!
While your photos are all good, I particularly like the detail of the 3rd one.
Thanks Tom. The water drops on it necessitated a closer shot.
Beautiful images!
I saw spectacular waterlily and lotus flowers at Kew Gardens, London.
I had an image here: http://yingguosuojiblog.com/2010/09/18/暑假游踪/
There are some lovely images on youtube too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dXrfHbdL_0
Thanks Janet. I’ve never visited the Kew Gardens, but have had a fascination with them since reading Jackson’s, “The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire” In it the author writes about a man named Henry Wickham who smuggled several thousands of rubber tree seeds out of the Amazon and delivered them to the Kew Gardens which were later planted around the world in England’s colonies and fueled the rubber boom of the early twentieth century.
Beautiful, I love the colour & clarity of the first shot.
Thanks Astrid. That’s my favorite shot of the batch.
You need to do tutorials, your work is awesome! At the very least give us some specs like what lens you use and ISO and stuff!! Great work!!
I shooting with my trusty micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/4 lens. My camera settings wouldn’t do much good given it’s unlikely you would encounter the same subject in exactly the same lighting conditions that I had on that fine morning. On the post processing side of things I darkened the shadows, lightened the darks, tamed the highlights, desaturated the colors and added some vignetting.
Looks exotic 🙂
Thanks Shyam Sundar.
These photos are really beautiful. I have not seen lotus from these angles. So darkly regal.
Thanks Monica. I tried to do something different than previous years.
Wow, really lovely shots. The first one is my favourite – a flower portrait.
Thank you Itchierfeet. I used to get itchy feet when I lived in Taipei. I found washing them thoroughly 3 times a day got rid of the itching and funky odor.
He he he! I have found that so much flying time in economy class has reduced the itching somewhat…
Beau! Funny, I was at the lotus ponds in Taipei over the weekend, too. Haven’t had a chance to DL my pics yet, though.
Looking forward to seeing them! Isn’t everybody knee deep in water in Taipei now?
Fabulous shots there!
Thank you Jean!
Reblogged this on Naresh Kumar Chiratanagandla.
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