Buttercup Meadow

To capture wild flowers at their peak in the countryside often requires a chance discovery when out scouting an area followed by repeated visits to a location, careful observation and a good dollop of luck! Local knowledge is also very important. All play a key role in the life of a landscape photographer and for these photographs of the buttercup meadow I was certainly lucky on several counts.

Firstly, the location was only five minutes walk from my house on the edge of the countryside and required no use of the car to reach so was easily accessible. Secondly, I walk my dog almost every morning along a track adjacent to this meadow so I could monitor the progress of the flowers in bloom and I did just that over several weeks. I knew there would only be a two or three week period when the flowers would be at their optimum or most photogenic therefore careful observation allowed me to take the photograph when I felt they had reached their peak display.

Thirdly, I was very fortunate that there were no livestock in the field to disturb the flowers and as a result of this the buttercups had flourished during a prolonged spell of fine sunny weather. To my utter delight this nondescript green grassy meadow had transformed as if by slow magic into a beautiful carpet of yellow.

 This type of scene would definitely not benefit from early morning or late evening sunlight which would introduce harsh shadows and spoil the yellow colour of the flowers. The colour temperature of the sunlight at these times would introduce a golden cast  spoiling the natural appearance of the flowers. Besides, from my chosen viewpoint, the sun would have been directly in front of me resulting in the scene being backlit and also directly behind me at sunset and shadows would have crept into the scene from the tall trees located immediately behind. Importantly I also noticed that the buttercup flowers would be closed at these times and I wanted them open showing their optimum display.

 I would have to wait till the sun was roughly in a 90 degree angle off to my right and this would be around late afternoon sometime after 4pm. This would also allow me to use a polariser to reduce reflections off the flowers and intensify the colours in the scene whilst avoiding the worst of the midday light. If the sun had been directly overhead the light would have been too harsh and the colours washed out in the meadow.

 The focal point or interest of this scene is the bright yellow buttercups and everything else plays a supporting role. Colour is the theme of the photograph and therefore the foreground must contain a nice even expanse of flowers with no obvious gaps to distract the eye from the expanse of yellow receding into the distance. Similarly, the background must complement the view and contain no distracting elements to draw the eye out of the scene and the green hillside and blue sky do this perfectly. It would have been unrealistic to attempt to capture the whole expanse of the buttercups that were in bloom so I scouted carefully around the edge of the meadow and chose what I felt was the most photogenic viewpoint. I experimented with both portrait and horizontal formats and used different focal lengths before finally settling on my favoured composition. From there it was simply fine tuning, small steps to the left or right, to ensure the view translated into a great photograph and represented what I had seen.

 I adjusted the focus using the digital preview option on my camera which allowed me to zoom into the image on the back of the monitor to check the sharpness and also the zone of focus. My intention was always to make a large sized print of this scene so careful focusing was necessary to ensure the flowers were sharp in the foreground all the way through to the distant hillside. A large aperture gave me extensive depth of field and after a quick test shot, the monitor on the back of the camera allowed me to quickly check the exposure was good, with no blown highlights, and to zoom into the scene to make sure everything was indeed perfectly focused.

Even on a sunny evening like this there was still a slight breeze so I was careful only to release the shutter at the precise moment when the flowers in the foreground were completely still and the image preview on the back of the camera was used to check this. I captured images in both portrait and horizontal formats and tried slightly different viewpoints and compositions and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours in the late afternoon enjoying my photography. Always wanting to make the most of this golden or yellow  opportunity I returned the following day and took very similar images but this time with more clouds in the sky.

Two weeks after the photographs had been taken, the grass, along with all the wild flowers, disappeared when it was cut and turned into large, round bales for winter cattle feed. The beautiful buttercup meadow no longer existed.