Wind, photo by Harold Davis. View this photograph larger.

I photographed this California poppy surrounded by blue flowers today in a high wind.

I’ve mentioned before the wisdom of making photographic lemonade when given lemons. In this situation, I knew I couldn’t make a successful stopped-down high depth-of-field macro. So I decided to take advantage of the wind, and to try to portray the wind in the image I was creating.

With the camera on tripod, I opened the aperture as far as I could for the fastest possible shutter speed (1/125 of a second at f/5.6). I got down on my belly like a snake, and shot up into the blue flowers, focused tight on the poppy. My object was to show the contrast between the out-of-focus blue flowers blowing in the wind, and the poppy–which held still for just the decisive instant so that I could take this photo!