The Sinister Hydrangea

Show of hands ... How many of you have seen the original The Manchurian Candidate? Among the scenes that stand out is Sinatra's nightmare. It's a mixture of garden club meeting and brainwashing lecture. If the woman talking about hydrangeas looks familiar, her name is Helen Kleeb. I remember her from a series of Hidden Valley Ranch commercials in the 1970s. If memory serves, this edit was the first draft. The director basically said throw something together, this was it, and it stayed. Oh, and don' t bother with the remake with Denzel Washington; a total waste of money.

Anyway, back to hydrangeas ...

 

It took some time to get these shots. Local deer wandered up overnight and ate a lot of the blooms before they got anywhere, so they had to recover. These blooms are from the same plant. The top left photo is one of them just getting started. The mineral content of the soil dictates between pink and blue, which is stated in the creepy lecture I've linked above. Hey, you can't say the research wasn't done! Lots of texture, and just the right amount of shadowing.