Inside the Bell
During the day I was seeking out mountain wildflowers at higher elevations, I kept seeing these little yellow flowers spotted over the sides of the road. One or two here and there, occasionally growing next to ferns, and while I never found one of these inside the ferns themselves, I did happen along a little hillside that had them scattered in a denser cluster. I couldn’t resist, so I stopped and began setting up, shooting handheld to find what I thought would work best for what I wanted. I had several compositions selected, this was one of the last. I took a few shots of this flower, it wasn’t until after I had gotten home and began looking into the images that I noticed I had actually captured far more than just a flower on the side of a mountain. If you look closely, you may see a guest appearance from the smallest grasshopper I have ever seen.
Setting up in between rain showers isn’t really realistic as a photographer. You have to be on point, you may have all day to capture the image you want, or you may have a scant few moments, sometimes less. You don’t wait for the weather to change when you’re on the scene. You get your setup ready for the shot you want, you put a shower cap on your lens if its heavy, and if you don’t have rain gear? Tough. You commit to the shot, you may get a moment of light, you may not. It’s the risk, and sometimes its worth it.
For the edit of this shot, I spent a lot of time trying to balance my colors, adjust the shadows and contrast. The part that actually took the most amount of time was masking off the grasshopper and brining it fully out of the shadows, and while it’s small even at 100% you can see the detail where it matters. It’s a unique shot for me since I didn’t see what I was capturing. I shot at 1/1000th on the scene here to stop the motion of the flower as it heavily swayed in the mountain breeze. I may of gotten away with 1/500th but I wasn’t willing to risk micro movements here. It was an interesting experience for me for sure.
Until Next Time!
Aperture: f2.8
ISO: 1000
SS: 1/1000th
Focal: 140mm
Fujinon 50-140mm
