California Golden Poppies. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Late-winter California golden poppies in the hills of Santa Clara Valley.

Many California “spring” wildflowers begin to appear near the end of solar winter, at least in the lower elevation areas of the state. Of all of the characteristic blooming harbingers of spring, the California Golden Poppy may be the most recognized and one of the most prolific. I began to see a few individual flowers here and there way back in early February, but on a hike in a local park near the beginning of March we saw that the main bloom was now underway.

There are a lot of ways to photograph this type of flower, but many of them turn out to be a bit trickier than you might expect. That orange color is very intense in the red channel, which means that it is quite easy to blow out the flower details on digital cameras. In addition, the flower likes to open up in full sun — not the easiest light to photograph — and close up during the popular early and late hours. And even a bit of wind can make it difficult to photograph them… during this season that is often windy.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Narcissus Flowers. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of white narcissus flowers in bloom.

A short while ago I shared the first photograph of this set, a picture of a single narcissus flower. In this companion photograph, made on the same day and in almost the exact same spot, I decided to focus on a group of these flowers instead.

Photographing these flowers seems to me to be a bit more complicated than it might appear. Allow me to share a few things I had to think about. First of all, I wanted to blur out the background, but I also wanted many parts of the flowers to be relatively sharp. Photographers will recognize a conflict there between a small aperture and a large one! A second challenge comes with a subject where almost all of the tones are light. I want to retain the bright quality of the subject, but I must avoid overexposure or I’ll lose all of that subtle near-white texture and detail. So I underexpose just a bit, knowing that I can work the image in post a bit to get it where I want it.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.