Seeing Red

Another closeup from my early morning trip to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn, Oregon on Saturday.  It seems like this backlit closeup was the only type of composition I had any success with.  I need to be more disciplined on my next visit though, because I don't want a tulip closeup this year; I did that last year.  This year I need a tulip field photo.  And I do want red.  So I got it half right at least. Note to self: Next time go right for the red tulips, and no zooming in!

Tulips at Sunrise

I've been back from the Palouse for over a week now, and while I've been posting photos from my trip out there I was continuing the tulip field practice.  This is probably my best photo from the week.  This particular tulip variety is called Dordogne. I like the morning dew, and unopened tulips, plus the colors are really soft. I arrived at the field about an hour after sunrise, which is sleeping in for morning photographers.  There were several photographers there, just finishing up and probably chuckling at my late arrival.  I feel like I would have liked the light better if I'd shown up an hour earlier.  I did try arriving earlier later in the week, but it didn't go quite as planned.  I'll post some photos of that particular trip over the weekend.

Color Block

From my sunny day shoot at Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Oregon.

It gives a sense of how the field was looking back on March 24th.

I'll return here next week and post some new photos of the field for an update.

Out in the Field #2

I haven't had a chance to get out with my camera in the last few days, but this morning I looked through my SD card in preparation for a trip I'm taking this weekend, and decided to post a few more photos from my trip to Woodburn last week.  My main issue with all the photos I took that day was that the light was pretty harsh, but I'm liking this one especially today. I'll post a few more over the weekend, and should hopefully have some new scenery to post next week once I get back. 

P.S. Post 900 today :)

Out In the Field

I visited Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm later in the morning when the light was getting too bright for photography, but I had pretty good luck with these rows of red and white tulips; I'm not sure why, but the light doesn't look too harsh in these photos.  Yesterday's was taken from the opposite direction, with the sun almost directly facing the red flowers, while in today's photo the flowers are backlit. I think this photo really shows the state of the field, with some rows in bloom and others preparing.   One thing I learned about tulip fields that really surprised me is that they dig up the bulbs every year and replant them in the fall, rotating locations of the different varieties to help with disease, insects, erosion, etc. and they cut all flowers before any petals drop, also to prevent disease. There were lots of workers in the field when I was there on Monday. I just never considered the extent to which tulip field maintenance is a year round job!  

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm

It's getting very close to tulip time up here.  Yesterday I headed over to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn to see the progress in the fields.  I would say about half the rows are starting to bloom, so maybe by next weekend they will be in full bloom.  The farmers told me that cold weather will prolong the bloom season, and since the weather turned colder and wetter today and this forecast continues through the weekend, I'm hoping for a long bloom season.  I have three different farms to visit in Oregon and Washington over the course of this month, so I'll get a lot of practice photographing tulips and keep some nice spring color up on the blog!