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in this site copyright © Francisco Miranda unless otherwise mentioned. No reproduction in whole or part without
written permission. |
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Presentations
Update: 10/10/08
This page is something I've been thinking of preparing for a long time. As many people reading it know, I've been
giving presentations to orchid societies for about twenty years in the U.S. alone and for longer than that in Brazil.
In the last 8 or so years I've also done the Canadian lecture circuit three times, two of them coast to coast and
almost a month long. This adds to more than three hundred presentations total, and until recently they were solely
slide presentations. As I think we finally got to the point that digital equipment is good enough in terms of image
quality, affordability and portability these presentations are now exclusively digital. Digital presentations are
much more flexible in terms of content and, very importantly, allow us to see up to several subjects at once; this
is very good for species comparisons, for example.
All the presentations have things in common, among these showing lots of plants in their natural habitats and as
a consequence we can discuss cultivation guidelines, besides traveling through some nice countryside. The pictures
shown in them are a result of about 30 years of visiting the Brazilian orchid natural habitats, and unfortunately
several of these places have been totally destroyed throughout the years since I visited them first.
So following is a list of current presentations with a brief description and a sample picture to give an idea of
the type of content. With time, new themes will be added. I will still keep my old Brazilian Cattleya and Laelia presentations, but they are rewritten for digital format
(and improved). As digital flexibility allowed me to change the perspective, the presently new Cattleya presentation is very different from the old one, so I ended up with two very different
Cattleya presentations.
Presentations 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 are ready in digital
format and tested on orchid society meetings; number 4 is being written and will be ready soon. There are also
a few new themes already started and will be announced here in due time.
| 1 |
- Braziliam Orchid Habitats - 1 (the Amazon) |
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This is the digital version of my Amazon presentation.
It was a stand alone subject but now it fits much better as the first part of the habitats series. As I lived in
the Amazon for about four years, I had a chance to visit most of the more typical habitats in the region, and the
result is that we can discuss the different main ecosystems, their particularities, and orchid species typical
of each of them. This presentation is not limited to a particular group of orchids, and in fact the idea is to
show the more different types of orchids as possible, thus giving a general idea of what we can expect to see in
the region. |
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| 2 |
- Brazilian
Orchid Habitats - 2 (the interior) |
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These (this one and the next) were my first presentations
created totally as computer ones. In fact, I first made a presentation named "Brazilian Orchid Habitats"
which was a trip throughout the whole country. However, after the first tests I concluded it was just too big,
and as most orchid societies don't like presentations that are almost two hours long regardless of how interesting,
I decided to split it in three. The first one includes the Amazon, which used to be a stand alone presentation
(see above), the second one (this one) depicts dry Central Brazil and goes to the interior mountains where most
rupicolous orchids are found. These presentations are purely habits, and as such lots of travel and give a good
idea of what Brazil looks like. Here is a shot from the Serra do Cipó, Minas Gerais state. |
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| 3 |
- Brazilian Orchid Habitats - 3 (the coast) |
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This is the third part of the habitats presentations,
and a logical following of the first two. Here, we travel throughout the coastal types of environments, from the
beach and sand dunes to swampy areas and up into the coastal mountains. There are several main ecosystems shown
and a lot of very interesting and showy orchids. Another light presentation, with impressive shots like this small
part of a tree covered with Laelia
purpurata in South Brazil. |
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| 4 |
- Rupicolous Orchids |
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There is a multitude of rocky habitats in Brazil, and
on most of them orchids can be found. Although most people associate rupicolous orchids with the rock-growing laelias
on the mountains, and indeed several of them grow like this, there are many many other types of orchids growing
under these conditions. In fact, rocky habitats are by no means restricted to the mountains and thus this is a
very interesting subject both by their type, range and orchid types as shown here with Bulbophyllum weddellii. |
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| 5 |
- The genus Cattleya
in Brazil - 1 (country tour) |
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This is the digital version of my long-time Cattleya presentation. It is a tour throughout Brazil showing most of the habitats where Cattleya species can be found and the species of the genus that occur in them, as shown here with
Cattleya granulosa. As Cattleya species
occur all over the country, this presentation shows most of the major regions and gives a good idea where cattleyas
occur in Brazil. The most showy species are also shown with their color variations. The final result os of a guided
tour throughout Cattleya habitats. |
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| 6 |
- The genus Cattleya in
Brazil- 2 (groups / species) |
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In this second version of the Cattleya presentation, the main emphases is with the species and their grouping. Besides treating
the species by affinity, there are several screens where different color forms are seen together to show species
variation. Most importantly, however, is that there are screens where different but similar species are shown together,
and this is very important to stress differences between those difficult to separate species (as with Cattleya loddigesii and C. harrisoniana, shown here). |
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| 7 |
- The genus Laelia
in Brazil (country tour) |
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As with the Brazilian cattleyas, this is the digital
version of my old Laelia presentation. The Brazilian laelias are here shown and discussed
(regardless of if people call them Laelia, Cattleya or Sophronitis). The different groups are all discussed and most species
shown in their natural habitats as seen here for Laelia
kleberi. For the showy and/or variable
species, the most outstanding and characteristic color forms are also shown. Also as with the cattleyas, this is
a tour through the regions of the country where these plant are found, and as the result we see some of the most
beautiful areas of Brazil. |
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