I like to photograph flowers in a natural setting to preserve the feeling that the flower is part of nature, rather than extracted as part of a bouquet. The problem is that the background can be confusing, so much so it’s hard to identify the subject. Recently I brought along some black background material to experiment with isolating flowers. Perhaps predictably, the photos are more dramatic and, yes, less natural.

Daffodil Hill is a private ranch in the California mountains near the town of Volcano, roughly two-and-half hours drive from the San Francisco area. (No, there is no volcano.) The McLaughlin family that’s owned the ranch since the 1880’s likes daffodils. They have about 300,000 bulbs, which is how I know they like daffodils, and they open the ranch to the public from late March through mid-April. If you want to photograph daffodils, this place is it.

Night queen flowers all bloom within a few days of each other. This tropical variety on Ali’i Drive in Kailua-Kona decided it would be October 20th. The flowers open at night and fade away after sunrise, collapsing by mid day. The plant is a cactus vine that grows as a hedge, and the spectacular flowers are four or five inches across and quite showy. There is a different variety in the Arizona desert that blooms in June. The Arizona variety has a bare stick-like stem, so the challenge is to show the characteristics of the plant and the flower all in one photo. I gave up.

It’s springtime! Well, in some places it is. In other places it’s on the way. Spring brings fields of flowers, and with that a photography challenge. It’s nice to show the location of the flowers with a long view that shows the lay of the land. It’s also good to show the individual character of the flowers, rather than just a splotch of painted color. A way to accomplish both in one image is to make a spliced panorama of a close view and a distant view.