Summer is almost over but we’ve had a week of temperatures in the 115’s F. About 45 degrees C. Very unusual for September! One evening the power went off in my house! Not fun! With that, all flowers are gone, and that includes the California poppy, the subject of this post.
If you have been following this blog for a while, you know already that I like to work in projects. A photography project is a somewhat unified, cohesive body of work that employs the same concept and similar technique, subject, and or palette throughout multiple photographs. Working in projects can be an excellent way to improve one’s skills and explore a particular theme or style in greater detail. It also helps the photographer to remain focused.
I do not finish all my photography projects, but I learn a lot from each and every one of them.
I usually start a project with an idea. While a few projects go on to interesting series, like the ones in my Image Projects gallery, most are abandoned for one reason or another.
This summer I decided to portray the flower of the California Poppy, Eschscholzia californica, before it opens. These flowers open when they are in full sun, remaining closed from evening to mid-morning. The pattern of the folded petals interested me, and I thought that I could come up with a variety of different pictures of them. Below is my first photo, which I liked and which inspired me to make more.
Despite my beginner’s luck, however, I was not able to come up with other interesting folding patterns. For example, the ones below are intricate, but do not really pop my corn.
After several failed attempts to make interesting photos, I decided to call my original California Poppy project to an end. However, the project morphed into another one, in black and white, which I will write about on my next blog post. Stay tuned!
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Wall Art landscapes and miscellaneous
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It is all about the light 
I’m with you in liking your first result, and the second picture also has its appeal for me. Might you have given up your series too soon? Maybe it would be worth trying again once the poppies are back in bloom.
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I took my share of photos! Maybe next year but I have plenty I don’t like.
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Interesting! I agree that the first one is perfect – you can see what it is, and the light, shading and colors are just right, and it has a cohesiveness. The others then seem unfinished as if the flower is either too early or too late perhaps?
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It is possible. Some are also too small and that makes it hard to show the folds, because they seen too tridimensional.
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Alessandra, you are amazing. Your chosen poppy is simply beautiful.
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Thank your for your kind words! It was an awesome poppy for sure.
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I can understand why the first image inspired you to pursue more compositions. I agree that is the best of those you shared. Did you pluck petals for number three?
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No, I think it was missing one or two naturally
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That was a promising start nevertheless. The first one is really beautiful.
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Thank you. It was difficult finding more.
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Personally, I think they’d work as a triptych, with the ‘perfect’ poppy in the center. There’s something charming about the thought that even nature doesn’t always achieve perfection.
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You’re right, nature is imperfect, and it’s beautiful because of it, not despite of it.
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‘… do not pop my corn’ – hilarious! I love these images for the colour and shadows.
I love your projects. Working in projects is something I wish I could do, but I’m just too scatterbrained to concentrate on a single thing for very long. It’s funny: I’m not that way at work. At work I plan, I stay focused and execute. With photography, I’m all over the place.
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Well, photography is to make you happy. Work is to provide for photography.
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