Early spring bloom, Skyline Blvd, Palo Alto, CA

Posted by Vaibhav (Stanford, United States) on 8 March 2010 in Landscape & Rural and Portfolio.

After a series of Yosemite's winter photographs, its quite fitting to post something which gives an indication of time to come (read Spring). Spring is upon us and with it, will come wild flowers, morning mist and warm sunny days. Over the weekend, I visited Russian Ridge open preserve in search of early wildflowers and found this bunch blossoming inches above the ground.

At the same time, sun was fighting the clouds to gain control of the sky. I observed a small opening in the clouds near the horizon and anticipated warm golden light which will bathe the flowers and grass though only for moments. I wanted to show the wildflowers with a diffused background. So I went very close to the flowers, focused at a point in the frame with a f-number high enough to give me the desired effect. Once I had the composition and exposure under control (a 2 stop soft grad neutral density filter was used to balance the light), I waited for the moment and was blessed soon after. The sun came out and with it came the anticipated light giving me enough time to make this photo.

Post processing involved tweaking exposure, white balance, sharpening and conversion to jpeg in Photoshop.

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