Self-Indulgent Poppy Post

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" The answer to that is inexorably. (See, I told you this was a self-indulgent post. I'm indulging myself in playing with words, which is something I like to do.)

I only have two poppies blooming in my garden right now. So you'd think I'd only need one photo, like this one, to tell the story.

Two Poppies in My Garden Today



But no, right off the bat I'm posting two versions of the exact same view. (More evidence of self-indulgence.)

A Horizontal View



Poppies are notoriously difficult to photograph, and I might be biased but I think it's worse in shade, as my poppies are now -- even though when I planted them they used to get plenty of sun. Maybe that's part of the reason why the first poppy didn't bloom until June 9, when in previous years it has been several days, and even up to a week earlier. (I don't count last year. The first poppy of 2010 bloomed on May 28, but for some reason everything bloomed early last year.)

So anyway, these two poppies have been snapped from every angle and direction I could think of. I even took several off-centre photos, trying to see what effect it would have on lighting and the ability to pick up detail.

'Manhattan' from the West



'Manhattan' from the East



'Manhattan' from Above



Then there's 'Allegro'. (At least, I think this is 'Allegro'. The petals are supposed to turn white at the edges, but I see no evidence of that yet.)

'Allegro' (?)



The thing that makes poppies hard to photograph is the deep black of their centres. It plays havoc with exposure settings on cameras. Also, my particular camera (Pentax K10D) doesn't handle subtle shading in deeply saturated reds and oranges very well. And what are poppy petals but compilations of subtle shading in deeply saturated reds and oranges? (Another self-indulgent practice: asking rhetorical questions instead of using straightforward sentences to convey information.)

Off-Centre Photo 1



Off-Centre Photo 2



Centred Macro Closeup



And finally, the irony is not lost on me that the most self-indulgent thing about this post is actually calling attention to the self-indulgence in it. But never mind. It's over now.
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