Description — This is a photograph of a pink tulip field near Mt. Vernon, Washington, which is north of Seattle. The photo was taken just after sunrise on April 16, 2007.
Camera Nerd Info — Linhof Super Technika V 4×5 view camera, Nikkor-W 135mm f/5.6 lens, Fuji Provia 100F film, exposure 2s @ f/22, rear tilt.
Commentary — Mt. Vernon is about an hour north of Seattle. Farmland to the west of the city is used to grow fields of tulips, which bloom in April. The fields of extremely bright flowers are a stunning sight. The flowers are so bright that looking at them irritates the eyes, which makes me wonder if they are reflecting the sun’s ultraviolet light.
Photographing fields of flowers with a view camera is challenging. View camera lenses are photographically slow and flowers wiggle in the breeze, which is a bad combination. For this image I tried to get around the problem by taking the picture right at sunrise, when there was no wind. To ensure depth of field I tilted the film plane back in relation to the lens, thus laying the plane of sharp focus along the ground. Even so, I ended up stopping the lens to f/22 to ensure sharpness and thus ended up with a long two-second exposure. The main drawback to this technique is that this early in the morning the flowers are still closed. I tried a different method for the Yellow Tulips photograph, which is also on this website.
ML