Night queen flowers all bloom within a few days of each other. This tropical variety on Ali’i Drive in Kailua-Kona decided it would be October 20th. The flowers open at night and fade away after sunrise, collapsing by mid day. The plant is a cactus vine that grows as a hedge, and the spectacular flowers are four or five inches across and quite showy. There is a different variety in the Arizona desert that blooms in June. The Arizona variety has a bare stick-like stem, so the challenge is to show the characteristics of the plant and the flower all in one photo. I gave up.

The QSA philosophy is to not worry about exposure and let the automatic camera do its thing. But like all great philosophical principles, there are exceptions. An automatic exposure of a sunset produces a wimpy wash-out image that cannot be fixed in Photoshop. The best strategy is to underexpose the image, then lighten it in Photoshop.