Active Mind, Creative Spirit
Tulips
It’s not international travel, but the Skagit Valley is home to the largest tulip growers in the US, so every spring, after the snow geese and bald eagles have flown to nesting grounds, the valley is covered in thousands of acres of stunning blooms. It also draws over a million people in six weeks while the blooms are on. We spent Easter afternoon strolling the show gardens and fields.
All of these are taken with a 50mm 1.8, and Nature’s light box (overcast skies are best for shooting).
The first few are to give you a sense of the show gardens. The last bit are flower stories that presented themselves to me.
Princess Irene (my fav)
Undulating waves, replanted in a different pattern every fall.
Firecracker pair – looking down inside
Muddy reflection
Impressionist Inspiration
Couple entwined – You’re walking on a crowded street, everyone standing straight, minding their business, putting on their best show when you notice a couple kissing on a bench. It kinda feels like this.
Look Beyond What You See. – Sometimes the stuff in the background (or frame) is what makes the photo. Mt Baker would be visible in the background here if it was out, and I love knowing it’s there, behind comfortable, repeating green rows and valley hills.
Three Musketeers – Each has its own personality, but they are three of a group, obviously. Each makes the group stronger. That guy in the upper left must be d’Artagnan looking on.
Here’s another love story (flowers, love – it’s not a stretch). The couple in this one is surrounded by his family, and she doesn’t blend perfectly, but if they’ll let her, she’ll complement them well. The question is, will they let her? (Feel free to swap the his/her reference to be whatever you want – they’re flowers, which makes them hermaphrodites.)
Ok, this one was just me having too much fun with f1.8, no other story, but you should make one up, it’s fun.
Hours among colors like this can blind you to other things. I shot this one toward the end of our day, when the endless fields of red were overwhelming me, but the one face who looked back at me with a design and texture made me smile. He was different, damaged, tired and more beautiful because of it. It’s more apparent when you take away the color. So I did.
These fields are literally trampled by the million visitors who pass through. Both my kids read the 5-foot high signs that begged people to stay on the roads, out of the rows, then watched half the people crunch into fields, shoving flowers aside to climb over a row, get a photo, rip petals apart, and pick flowerheads clean off then drop them, spent on the ground. It felt akin to defacing art, a quintessential act of disrespecting the people who let you in to enjoy the beauty that you ruined. Most of the flowers survive, of course, and $5 admission times a million visitors probably covers most of their losses, but that didn’t matter to my kids. It made me proud that they have that much respect for property and disgust for people who don’t.