Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve

Guess where we went last weekend?  Yep, Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve!  We had so much fun enjoying the poppies and desert flowers.  Yes, they were definitely not as abundant as in the past, so Landscape photographers wouldn’t be happy.  On the other hand us Macro photographers definitely enjoy the cluster of flowers.    The wind was blowing,  but if you find a couple of hills next to each other, you’ll find spots where the wind isn’t as bad as the rest of the valley.  I have some really fun images that I plan to share  later, but I wanted to show you this particular photo today. As many of you know,  I am a fine art photographer, so I really like getting into my post processing.  This image was shot RAW – ISO 100 f4 @ 1/180.   I had an umbrella to help deflect the wind. The picture below was processed in Lightroom with a couple of tweaks.   I like this image so don’t get me wrong,  it’s nice just to add a bit of tweaks and leave it at that, sometimes.  🙂

Here is my fun image.  I had a blast processing this photo!  I used Lightroom for basic adjustments and then took it into Photoshop.  I used a variety of Nik’s Color Efex Pro filters to make it dramatic.

As you can see there wasn’t an abundance of flowers.  This was taken on the dirt road in one of our favorite places between some hills.  If you click on the Antelope Valley link above,  you can see what the reserve looks like when California has plenty of water to feed the flowers.

I was debating about whether or not to go this year.  I’m so glad Kevin encouraged me to get out and photograph.  I always feel so revitalized when we hike and I photograph.

A short behind the scene video.  🙂

Inspiration for the day…get out and take a hike with your camera even if you feel the photo op may not be what you expect. You may have a happy surprise like I did!

Cheers, Janice Sullivan

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