The weekend before last I took a trip over to Washington to visit the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, which runs throughout April and is about an hour's drive from the border.
It appeared that just about everyone else had a similar thought, as the queue at the border was nearly two hours long, and the fields and car parks at the festival were packed! To get this shot I had to walk to the extreme end of one of the larger fields, where not many people ventured.
I really liked the texture and detail in these tulip crates, soon to be used to transport the cut flowers, but for now just waiting by the rows, so worked them into this wide-angle composition showing the crates, the tulips, and the sun. This was taken about an hour before sunset, so the sun was still quite harsh, but was starting give a warm glow to the flowers and the crates.
As I was shooting directly into the sun, I needed to use HDR to capture the full range of this scene. I took a total of seven photos, with exposures ranging from 1/80th to 0.8 seconds, to keep the detail both in the sky and in the shadows cast by the sun. A narrow aperture of f/16 kept everything in sharp focus, and also contributed to the sunstar effect.
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
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Fantastic composition and processing and an instant and BIG FAV! (thanks for giving the details of your camera settings, I find I learn so much from people who give this information.)
Just love this so much! I love that you left the crates there (or placed them there). We were in the Netherlands last year and I had really hoped to see a field of tulips but we were just a little too late. Fav.
Fabulous take on the Skagit festival! Big Fav! I've been lucky to be there for this tulip festival four or five times but missed it this year! So glad to see your post-- I've been waiting for a peek of the fields in bloom!
I always appreciate the stories behind your brilliant images,you share with us so generously!And this image is STUNNING!Love those crates in the foreground - it makes the image so unique!Perfection in everything!A big FAV!
Beautifully lit with an interesting foreground and then all those lines taking me into the image. Your HDR processing retains a natural look which I like. Could you share some details how you do this? Fav.
Stunning Alexis. Love the crates in the foreground. And thank you for sharing the behind the scenes info, it's great to know what goes into your shots.
