It’s a little bit of Iceland in Albuquerque; aka Duke City.

Icelandic Poppy

Poppies are a punch of color in early spring. They flutter in the wind and point skyward to the welcome sunshine above. I adore them in a garden so much that I once tried to grow my own.

At our first home in Rochester, NY, I planted a patch of red poppies in my bakyard.  I had high hopes for the sunny spot where the seeds were buried. Indeed, the flowers did grow.  For all of one day, I enjoyed the open blooms. Until I realized we had a groundhog in our yard. It dead-headed, as in ate the heads clean off, all my poppies in one meal. I was mortified.

I never replanted this type of flower in my garden again, since we never were able to catch that free ranging urban rodent and it was likely to repeat the buffet. Had he left them alone, they would have reseeded without my help, and spread out further than the original space. Such a pity.

Early blooming poppies are an appetizer for what’s to come in Spring. Seeing Icelandic Poppies at the Albuquerque Botanic Garden brought my memories of that gardening snafoo back clearly. I photographed this single perfect flower head and used shallow focus to study the edge of the petals and the burst of yellow in the central stamen.The hairy green stems from other flowers are nicely blurred out in diagonal lines behind it; intentionally.

At least in regards to fine art images, the artistic decision to control depth of field makes or breaks a photograph’s unique value.  Do you use this style in your own images? Why or why not?