California Poppies are hard to get a good picture of. All of them in the wild that I found were on private ranch land, and I had to discretely make the opportunity to take some pictures. They are quite low to the ground and the background always seems to have a wind generator in it. I took this one and several others in macro and tried to get them against an unblemished background. Taken hand held laying on the ground in a thistle patch with the wind blowing. Enjoy.
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Matt,
Thanks for taking the time to give your indepth review of my wild poppies. I knew the cropping was out of the norm when I subbmitted the shot, but I had to give it a try, Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say.
Keep up the good work!
Dick
First off, let me say that I admire the effort you went through to get this picture - I love photographers that are willing to go that far to get a shot! However, this shot just doesn't do it for me. The idea and the intent is there, but the execution leaves some to be desired. I think the crop is extremely harsh in this picture and I would gladly have traded a few wind generators for more scenery. The way you've framed the flower with the other plants takes away from the flower itself. My eye tends to follow those up, but it's uncomfortable because they're so close to the edges, thus it makes the whole picture feel constrained to me. I wish the background was a bit fuzzier too, but that's just me...
Everything else is spot on. I love the colors you've captured here and the focus on the poppy is wonderful.
It's so hard to get them to hold still if there's any breeze at all...very nice job with the focus and exposure on the poppies (better than mine). I think I like the deep DOF on this image (grain, hill and clouds in reasonable focus) but it would be interesting to see a version with those highly blurred also...
Good composition and light. The color of green is a little light for me. I also think the composition would of been improved my off setting the flower to the right or left just a bit. Too centered. The negative space at the top is fantastic.....The hill/sky is great. Really good work.
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