“Delicate yellow flowers fill the forest floor, nodding timidly in the soft spring sunshine.” – Ed Lehming

There is something wonderful about Trout Lilies, also known as Dogtooth Violet, though I prefer Trout Lily, since I don’t see any resemblance to violets in their form. They are one of several spring flowers that I look forward to every year as they seem to appear overnight. They are also not fond of cold, so the blossoms remain tightly closed till warm days or sunlight coaxes them open.

I’m also very fond of the structure of the blossoms which seem so delicate. They appear almost shy, as the flowers tilt downward on their slender stems. This also makes them a bit of a challenge to photograph. To get a good image means I have to get down low to the ground and shoot up or use a stick or rock to push the stem back to reveal the flower face, something I am hesitant to do because I want to photograph things as naturally as possible.

I have an image in my mind from and old children’s book where one of the characters, a fairey, is wearing this flower as a hat and that image remains with me as I photograph them. As I’m on the ground making photos I half expect to see a pair of small eyes looking back at me.

Yesterday was still a bit breezy, so I left my ISO high and set my aperture to f/11, wanting to add a bit of softness to the image. The sacrifice was that I had to shoot with a higher shutter speed to offset any change of movement due to the wind.

With the past two weeks of cool weather, the blooms have been delayed and it was not till yesterday that the flowers started opening up in significant numbers. Today promises to be warmer yet, with bright sunshine, so I will be returning to this patch to see what it has to offer me.

Nikon D800
Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 (272ENII)@90mm
1/1000 sec, f/11, ISO 800