How Blue Was My Valley

My trip last Saturday might be the super-long day trips for a while, largely for financial reasons. so I wanted to go out with a bang. So I took advantage of some camas blooms down south. Lupine and other cool flowers are starting to pop up in local parks now, so I'll have plenty to do close to home in the near future.

I got to Mima Mounds right at sunrise, and there was some very nice light coming across the fields. I took this one with a graduated ND filter - which may have overdone the darkening of the sky, but not irreparably so.

On these next two - and I can't decide which composition I like better, so I'm posting them both, although I 'm instinctively drawn to the first - I should have used a wider aperture. I wanted some definition in the background flower fields, but f/13 cluttered the background a bit more than would have been ideal. Oh well.

Here are a few more from Mima Mounds. Again, the first of this set could have used a narrower aperture.

This next one I took with my wide-angle lens, at its widest focal length. I like the exaggerated perspective, it makes the flowers feel "close":

It was also Prairie Appreciation Day at nearby Glacial Heritage Preserve, which is not ordinarily open to the public. Unfortunately, the preserve was only open from 10-4, not the best timeframe for photography. I found some very nice flowery forest glades that would be very photogenic early in the morning or on an overcast day. If there is ever a Prairie Appreciation Day on a cloudy day, I am definitely returning.