Photographing Lady's Slippers In The Glow Of A Strawberry Moon

Staying up all night with Cypripedium orchids bathed in moonlight

Words have their limits. Pictures, too. But put the two together and sometimes they can take us places, help us see and feel moments otherwise impossible to imagine.

I have been awed by Lady’s Slippers for nearly twenty years, since my first encounter alongside a trail in the Oregon Cascades while backpacking in with a friend to fish remote stretches of the magnificent, Metolious River. Nothing in my previous wilderness experiences had prepared me for such an unexpected encounter. Not paintbrush or shooting stars, not columbine or larkspur, or even an entire meadow full of Avalanche Lillies.

Cypripedium montanum was beyond. She was mysterious and exotic in ways that no other wildflower I had ever encountered came close to equalling. Not even diminutive Fairy Slipper orchids. Lady’s Slippers had a grown-up, goddess-like presence about them that defied any simple or dismissive, ‘Oh, how pretty!’ response.

I was smitten.

I have been attempting to commune with and portray this ‘presence’ ever since.

I was watching the light fade within an immense meadow of Wyethia (mule-ears), lupine and paintbrush when this arresting, orange, Strawberry Moon began to appear across the valley, rising silently through wispy clouds. Several hours would pass before that full moon transited the night sky enough to find the open window, before it could peer between the trees of that wooded glade where Lady’s Slippers orchids stood, regal, expectant and in full bloom.

So there was no need to hurry. I had plenty of time. I opened a cold beer, leaned back in my camp chair and basked in the warm embrace of early summer. Birdsong trailed off as darkness deepened and the lights of LaGrande in the far distance appeared to grow brighter, like the stars in the gloaming, above.

When there was still just enough light to make out the two-track I had walked to the meadow more than an hour prior, I followed it back to my rig, arranged my sleeping bag and pillow for later, then pulled out a case of assorted, battery-powered lights I’d tucked in, just in case.

This ‘how the sausage is made’ shot, captured with my iPhone shows the position of the camera setup relative to the orchids and an early, garish and still rather awkward lighting attempt. If it leaves you a little uneasy, I assure you, it makes me cringe, too. I am so grateful that the moon came round, making all this pretend and practice play, moot.

Over the next few hours I played, crawling around on hands and knees in the dark, moving ring light and light bar, and wand-light this way and that, dialing up and down their brightness, adding and subtracting diffusers and hiding them behind trees and clumps of grass in an effort to just barely add highlight and definition to the otherwise, night-hidden world surrounding the wild orchids of my moonlit imaginings.

After each adjustment I crawled back to my waiting camera, mounted low to the ground on a sturdy tripod, to fire off another shot or two so I could study every nuanced highlight and shadow, every sharp-focused blossom and blurred out tree beyond. I was still searching for the proper composition for my portrait while playing with pretend lunar light.

No matter what I tried, none of my artificially lit portraits felt quite true. But then, later, when compared to the actual moonlit shot, they don't feel at all true. It paid to wait. I'm glad I tried, but gladder yet for the moon's stellar cooperation, eventually.

I intended to use my hours long wait for good, hoped to have hip-pocketed a believable, first portrait by the time the actual moonlight arrived. Again, just in case.

I told myself that even if such a ‘produced,’ carefully lit portrait wasn’t completely authentic it would still depict something rare and beautiful, something well beyond what I or most other Northwest wildflower lovers had ever seen. My experiments kept me busy but didn’t really matter in the end. No matter how subtly I tweaked and redirected my artificial moonlight for the camera, every iteration ended up looking just a little bit fake. Or a lot. I’m not a big fan of fake.

Hold out, I coached myself. Wait. As long as it takes. Only a damn fool would drive across an entire state and into the next on the eve of a full moon, then settle for a flashlight?

When my knees grew too achey I took breaks, walking back to my rig for a quick snack, or from woodland back to meadow to see how the moon was progressing across the night sky and to attempt a capture of some of that midnight magic in a photograph, as well, that profound immensity of mixed wildflowers stretching outward toward the horizon, bathed in the cool light of a full, June moon.

I loved the feel of the moonlit, meadow portrait but knew, as I carried tripod and camera back toward the forest that it would probably be at least another hour before the moon had moved into a position amenable to my hoped for, Lady’s Slipper portrait, and at least two hours yet before sleep. Having driven hundreds of miles that morning and waited months for these unfolding moments, I rallied, banking my energy and reenvisioning a portrait that felt true …that was true.

I was intent on capturing just one quiet, windless moment of perfection; a wooded glade with only real moonlight falling upon translucent, Lady’s Slipper blooms, caressing them and making them glow just as they must when there are no human eyes looking on. This was my pact with the evening, with the full June Strawberry Moon and my with beloved, Cypripedium orchid friends.

And that is when the owls arrived. Two of them at first. Then three. Great-horned owls, definitely. A parent and two young ones learning to hunt? I guessed. Curious and vocal, but not at all threatening. Strangely, gratefully, reassuring. Energizing, too. One, authoritative and calm. Two, tending more toward uncertainty and complaint. I turned off my headlamp and sat listening to them in the darkness, following their movements audibly, from tree to tree. They stayed with me for several minutes, speaking in their exquisite language and making me forget my aches and weariness, altogether.

When the moon had finally edged westward just enough to begin piercing that space between the silhouetted trees of the grove, it fell first upon a different Lady’s Slipper plant than the one I had been setting up on all evening. And when I quickly moved my camera and tripod into position to frame up that newly, moon-kissed scene I could see immediately that it was a better shot. Much better. There were other wildflowers just beyond; largeleaf lupines. They too were glowing and yet, perfectly out of focus. And the trees, yes, the trees were arranged more interestingly from this vantage, practically begging for a wider, more inclusive, landscape orientation, to surprising, aesthetic effect.

So that shot I had been thinking I would get became an essential step, but not the final step to a moonlit portrait with the power to take my breath away.

Behold if you will… Lady’s Slippers Beneath A Full June Strawberry Moon

I had never seen these mysterious flowers in anything but daylight. Overcast and light rain, yes. Backlit in late morning sun, yes. Mid-afternoon shade, certainly. But moonlight… What must they look like in moonlight?

I worked quickly and deliberately then, capturing maybe fifty exposures with minimal variations in exposure, depth of field and framing over the next twenty eight minutes. Breezes were light, but not, non-existent. Several exposures of one and a half to four seconds were blurry, rendered useless by even faint gusts of breeze while the shutter was open. But a handful, just a handful captured these exquisite, glowing creatures in still air, within that wash of moonlight in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

Before I quit, I transferred one image wirelessly from the camera to my iPhone where I could enhance it a bit with a photo app and look more carefully into its depths. It was sharp …and not too dark or compromised with digital noise. It was beautiful! And mysterious. And best of all, true.

I sat there on the ground just staring at it, staring into it …for at least ten minutes on my glowing screen, smiling and swaying, and soaking in the moment. And whispering my thank yous.

Andy. The Lady’s Slippers. The trees and the moon. The owls.

Weariness and relief.

Time to sleep.

This is the same Cypripedium montanum plant and those are the same, blue, largeleaf lupines, pictured in the final moonlit shot, but pictured from a different angle to take in the sunrise which arrived about three and a half hours later. You’ll just have to imagine in the smells of the awakening woods and steaming coffee, and the songs of a dozen different kinds of birds all around that roused me at first light, more than an hour prior.

If you would like to know more about this wildflower wonderland in NE Oregon (which is open to the public with permission), and begin an acquaintance with its creator/caretaker, Andy Huber, please visit the Growiser website:

https://www.growiser.net