All Images And Text On This Site Are Copyright 1999-2000
by
Thomas D. Hill Jr.
Poppies at Lake Louise
I'm not much of a close-up photographer. Though I've tried and tried to explore the smaller world, my results have less than inspiring. A few of my images have been interesting but mostly I have to attribute any success to coincidence and luck. Skill and cunning has mostly escaped me when attempting close-up photography. So if you see any successes here, I can't say is do to any grand design I've made.
These poppies were located in Banff National Park at the Chateau Lake Louise. Right behind the hotel towards the lake, the grounds keepers maintain a couple of excellent looking flowerbeds that are mostly populated by poppies similar to these. This area is populated with dozens of extremely photogenic subjects. The mountains, lake, and chateau have appeared in dozens of high quality photos in many kinds of media. The location is almost over exposed. As a result, it takes extra effort to create something interesting and unique-something than doesn't sing the standard tune of "been there, done that".
I decided to concentrate on the poppies themselves verses trying to include them as garnish in a scenic. Their location in the flowerbed didn't allow enough flexibility to make an acceptable scenic anyway. Since zooming on the flowers themselves was the answer, my approach was fairly well defined after that. The most difficult issues after deciding on the composition were the simple mechanics of setting up my tripod and camera. Close-up photography can sometimes require feats of gymnastics to get the right perspectives.
Since depth of field is so small in the micro world, the next challenge was organizing my camera to make the film plane parallel to my subjects. Even then, I couldn't plan on keeping all of the flowers in focus. Like everything in photography, you have to always compromise.
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