Tulip Festival Pics

BenA2BenA2 Registered Users Posts: 364 Major grins
edited April 28, 2006 in Landscapes
Finally got a chance to get out and do some much-needed shooting this weekend. My wife and I spent Friday night and Saturday morning in Mt. Vernon, WA, at the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. This has to be one of the most photographed events I've ever attended. In the late and early hours when the crowds are down, the photographers are out in full force.

I've really been looking forward to this opportunity to get out and improve my landscape skills. I expected to do a lot of work with the 10-22, but I was really unhappy with my wide-angle compositions. Not only was there just not enough clean landscope over that angle, but the straight lines of the tulip rows just exagerate the distortion at wide angles. I ended up spending most of my time in the 50-85mm range, wishing I had a longer lens to turn to.

It was interesting to see what the pros were shooting. They were going after perspectives and lighting conditions (shooting about 20-45deg off the sun) that just looked totally wrong to me. And it wasn't until I spent minutes looking at their scenes that I figured out what they were going for (and then promptly began copying them). That was quite a learning experience.

Anyway, here are a couple of my keepers. The first was taken in some sweet light just before sunset.

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Canon 350d w/ EF-S 17-85 at ISO 400, 1/60s, f/10

The second was a great opportunity to get Mt. Baker in behind the tulip fields.

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Canon 350d w/ EF-S 17-85 at ISO 400, 1/200s, f/11

C&C are very welcome. Which do you like better?

Thanks,
Ben

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