Photographing Poppies!

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Who doesn't feel cheerful when they see poppies? I think poppies are very photogenic and try to photograph them in different ways every year. You usually have until the end of July to really let yourself go.

The fragile petals bring crepe paper to mind. When they get wet, the colours run slightly, as if you have been playing around with watercolours.

The heart, with its black stamens, stands out nicely against the red. A very beautiful detail to photograph. Captured from above or from the side, but also when they shine through the poppy leaf as little silhouettes.

This flower is particularly suitable for backlighting. That is, when the flower is between the camera and the sun. Slight underexposure works best then. When the grasses or the surroundings are still covered in dew, you can create beautiful bokeh in the background at the same time.

The petals are slightly waxy. That is why I rarely photograph them in harsh sunlight, but make sure the flower is in the shade. Sunlight in the background then provides much nicer contrast.

Another interesting detail of the plant is its hairy stem. This is also beautiful in backlighting. You do not even have to photograph the flower in focus to know what the subject is. A fun challenge for making a more intriguing photo.

High key, a method where you strongly overexpose the photo, gives a completely different look and feel. Poppies are also extremely suitable for this. I prefer to use a white sheet of paper or a reflector behind the flower for a calm and stylised image.

A combination of sharp and blurred poppies can also be beautiful. This works best by using a shallow depth of field, in other words a wide aperture, such as F2.8.

You often get surprising results by deliberately over- or underexposing, high key or low key.

Perhaps you could try creating a painterly image. Give the impression that you are looking at a watercolour instead of a photo. When you study Claude Monet's painting "Poppies", you see nothing but red spots of paint. Hardly any poppy is in focus, but in your imagination you see a field full of them.

Varying the colour temperature on the camera also results in a completely different type of photo. Personally, I find the shades from red to orange and from green to blue very beautiful.

Finally, using multiple exposures, taking photos over one another, is a very creative activity. Especially when you experiment with the dark or light setting. The more advanced cameras have this as standard in the menu.

If you have the opportunity to visit Tuscany, you will undoubtedly come across plenty of fields full of poppies! By incorporating them into your landscape photography, you get playful and dynamic photos.

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