High Saturation

Dreams of Fields

The very first set of poppies were taken in Bethania, NC at the home of gardening friend, in May, 2009, and you can see them if you dig back into the archives of this blog. My friend has a magic touch for color and design that stupefied me as I looked at them for the first time, and I spent two lovely early morning hours photographing them with my 200mm macro lens.

Several days ago I was in Provence, near Sault, looking for elusive lavender sitting in the fields, not yet in bloom. Here was a farmer’s field with wild European poppies instead, and they were equally enchanting. The challenge was the whipping wind, so I tried soft focusing instead of using my macro lens. With a 80-400 lens and a borrowed Canon D 500 focusing filter, I started to learn a new technique. There’s lots more to learn, but isn’t that the name of the game with photography? Using the focusing filter, the challenge is to get something sharp, sort of like a Lensbaby, I guess. I know two things that I’ll be ordering from B&H when I get home, the filter and a ring flash.