Description — Yellow tulip field near Mt. Vernon, Washington. Taken April 26, 2009, in late morning.
Camera Nerd Info — Linhof Super Technika V 4×5 view camera, Nikkor-W 135mm f/5.6 lens, Fuji Provia 100F film, exposure 1/250s @ f/ll, rear tilt.
Commentary — The Mt. Vernon area north of Seattle grows tulips. There are many acres of them, with several fields that are each planted in just one color. The flowers are extremely bright. They bloom in April.
For this photo I decided to avoid the “wiggling flower” problem by shooting in bright midday sun at a fast shutter speed. It worked. The flowers were open and the fast shutter speed “froze” their wiggling. I used rear tilt in order to have the aperture wide enough for a fast shutter speed yet maintain good depth of field. One effect of rear tilt is to distort the foreground slightly so that it “looms” toward the camera a bit. You can see that here in that the rows of flowers are not parallel. I personally like the effect, but now that I have pointed it out you might find it annoying.
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