More dreamy for theme 2

                                                                      The Dreamy
                                        shutter 1/200 aperture f4.0 iso 100 Focal L 105mm

The Planning:

I ensured I had a full battery and clean compactflash card before I set out on my travels to go to Calke to look for flower and tree images.  Mainly I wanted to capture a bluebell image and a dreamy image in connection with the impressionism research I have studied.  I took my tripod with me and ensured my lens was clean, also taking a lens cloth in my camera bag.

I think I managed to capture the 'dreamy' with this shot which I took on my way home from the outing.  I was driving when I spotted these lovely red tulips on the front of someone's garden so as I drove by I turned around, parked up on a side lane, so that I did not obstruct any passing traffic and walked a few paces to take the shot.  I leaned against the wall in front of the flowers in order to steady the camera for hand held use.  I held the camera tight, with the strap around my neck and looking upwards I composed and took the image.  There was quite a wind blowing opening the petals, which I liked,  and this coupled with the unusual low and  close angle   helped to blur the scene.  I used a wide aperture to blur the background.  I shot 2 images and this was the best one.   I am pleased with this and consider it to be my best attempt at the dreamy so far.  It is a catapillar view of being in and looking through the greenery at a level which achieved my intentions.  Previous attempts with my current tripod had failed to give my the low angle needed.

Lighting:  I zoomed my lens out to its maximum in order to get in close to the subject and used a low iso with natural light which gave me the shutter speed that worked with the gentle wind.

My health and safety considerations were that I parked up on the quiet lane, rather than the main road, to avoid obstruction to others.  I also leaned on the wall to ensure my equipment was held safely whilst taking an unusual angled shot.

Equipment Used:

Canon EOS 5D Mark II EF 24-105L IS USM kit
SanDisk Extreme CompactFlash Card 8GB 60 MB/s