Every time I visit LSU Rural Life Museum, I check the sugar kettles for these gorgeous purple flowers. Hit the jackpot today! As an aside,  I learned some interesting history researching sugar kettles, so that's another idea for this project. Thankfully, I didn't have to take many shots because it was so hot and the humidity so suffocating, I could hardly stand it. 

Trying to identify this flower has been difficult. It could be a water lily, a lilypad, a blue lotus flower, or some hybridized version of the water lily. The inside appears to glow. It's absolutely stunning.

Usually I have to clean up distracting specks or out of focus bugs, but this flower was pristine, so minimal processing, meaning less time on the computer. Hope everyone is having a blessed Saturday!

200/366Deep Purple
100mm | f/5.6 | ISO 100 | 1/500 sec

Technical notes: I've been using AUTO ISO (100-1600) and switching between AV and TV (aperture and shutter priority) depending on the situation. So far it seems to be working fine. Before, I hadn't trusted the Mark III to read the scene accurately, but I'm trusting it more now. Today was a bright, sunny day and it properly used 100 ISO here. Since I wanted the background mostly out of focus, I used AV mode to control that.