P#5 Cropping the Background in a Picture of a California Poppy

Getting down low with a telephoto lens to capture a California poppy

Rob Sheppard: The picture of the California poppies, this was actually shot in my garden. I have a native plant garden that is also drought tolerant, which is great for southern California.

I also think that having a native plant garden is great for another reason: it connects you with your natural world, where you live, if you're using natives from that area.

Most areas today do have nurseries that have native plants that are available. They also are more adapted to your area. Plus you can get some wonderful, wonderful plants.

The California poppies are just a really neat part of spring out here. I had a bunch of them in the garden.

I shot this with a telephoto lens, got down low. The reason for the telephoto is to compress the distance a little bit so that I'm not seeing some of the gaps in the garden because this garden is still relatively new. We moved into this house about a year ago and so it's still being established. (click the image for a larger version)

The poppies are great because they kind of fill in some of the gaps, but still there are gaps and there's a fence, and all that kind of junk. So I'm trying to avoid that by cropping tightly and by using a telephoto lens.

In summary

Compress the distance with a telephoto lens to avoid gaps in composition -- as in this photo of a California poppy.