Most of you who follow my work know that landscapes are definitely my go to type of shooting. I really enjoy doing all types and trying new things, but landscapes are where I'm in my element.
Every year, the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm has a month long festival allowing the public into their tulip fields. This year was my first time going and it was quite a bit of fun shooting all the beautiful flowers and trying some new things. Naturally I took some more typical landscape looking shots, but I also tried to go out of my element and shoot some more close-up shots and different compositions than usual.
The two above images were taken early in the morning about an hour or so before sunrise. In order to have enough light on the flowers without blowing out the sky, I used a headlamp during the long exposure to provide some light on the flowers. The beautiful colors in the sky were not the sun rising, they were in fact a great combination of sky, clouds and city lights. Light painting is a lot of fun to play around with and a new technique I've been experimenting with more frequently.
The Hot Air Balloon launch was one of the main reasons we went up so early in the morning. There were 4-5 balloons there and prepared to go, but only one was successful in launching. The second kept going up, then losing altitude and they said it was a result of to much wind and scrapped the remaining launches.
I love the simplicity of the one above. I found a great composition with a clean background that focuses on the texture and beautiful color tones.
Lastly, There was this one flower I found that stood out from the rest. Not because of it's height or color, but because it was taking it's own path as it grew and not the same path as everyone else. After getting this one processed, I began thinking that it deserved a great quote to go along with it. Check out the picture then read the quote just below and see if you think it fits as well as I do.
The festival closes on May 5th, so if you live in the Oregon/Southern Washington area, it may be worth a visit to see some beautiful tulips. I would love to hear your thoughts on the pictures and if you have been to a tulip or flower farm and what your experiences were, or stories about shooting new and different things from your usual subjects.