Photographing magical wild poppies and cornflowers during June
- herverannu
- Jul 9
- 10 min read
The first half of the Estonian summer has been like the winter of the previous year. It comes and goes. Temperatures have risen to higher temperatures for a couple of days and then dropped back to between 15-19 degrees. Overall, I feel that it has been very stable in terms of nature and I have been only on a few photo trips. In May, I went to Altja one early morning to check out the emerging ferns. Rather, inspired by a month-long trip to Tenerife, I have been collecting and digesting new ideas on how to move forward with my photography, and I have also completed some online courses about photography. However it is only a matter of time when calmer period is followed by a faster period. At some point nature starts calling.
First Poppies during sunset
June is the time when it is possible to photograph various wildflowers in Estonia, such as poppies, daisies and of course our national flower, the cornflower. Photos of the first poppy fields started appearing on social media in the second half of June. In recent years, I haven't had time to photograph poppy fields, and it was good to add some photos to my collection. One evening, I took the time and set off towards a poppy field because there was also a chance to see a colorful sunset. When I arrived at the site, there were, to put it modestly, quite a few other enthusiasts in the poppy field who were capturing moments. Both with smartphones and cameras. My initial idea was to capture the details of the poppies with the last golden light. To use different angles and lenses and find simple interesting moments. At this point, the golden light didn't last long because the sun disappeared behind the clouds.
I waited until the sun started to set. Usually 15-30 minutes after sunset, you can expect colors in the sky if there are high or medium clouds. While I was waiting, a fierce cloud arch appeared in the sky and I spontaneously decided to use a lower angle when capturing the frame. I found a single poppy that was a little separated from the other poppies and was located higher. I tried to align the poppy in the middle of the cloud arch in the sky. I turned the lens aperture as wide as possible, to F/1.4, so that the poppies closer to me would be blurry and the single poppy farther away would be sharp. This added depth to the photo and also made the photo a little more interesting. Due to the rather strong wind, the poppies moved back and forth and I waited for the right moment when the poppies would be more separated from each other and captured the moment.
Since the horizon was cloudy and there were no high or mid clouds in the sky after sunset, the colors in the sky were also not visible. I decided to take some more detail photos and called the evening. As I was moving into the car, I caught sight of a disgruntled citizen by the poppy field, who tried to make it clear to a young couple that it was actually not okay to trample on poppies for the sake of photos.
Everyone's own inner peace
I won't talk long here, but I feel like I want to say a few words. In recent years here in Estonia both in social media and the mainstream media have been outraged by the fact that people are trampling down poppy fields on private land. All for the purpose of taking photos. In my opinion, the incident in the poppy field near Aruküla last year was particularly ugly. A "Private Land" sign was placed next to the poppy field on private land, as well as a sign asking people not to trample down the poppies and to only take photos from the edge of the field. Unfortunately, many people didn't understand this, and there were shots of people thoughtlessly taking photos in the middle of the poppy field. The poppies were trampled underfoot at the same time. The incident eventually reached to the media called "Õhtuleht", as I recall.
Basically, the same scene unfolded this year in the poppy field mentioned above, where I went to take photos during sunset. In the middle of this whole saga, the matter ended with the poppy field in question being simply mowed down later. At this point, we can't just point the finger at those people who don't do photography and just want to capture a beautiful field with their smartphone. I saw several photographers with my own eyes doing photoshoots, as well as photos and videos posted on social media, where they placed their models in the middle of a poppy field. Poppies bulging out from under the model to every direction. In my opinion, this is also a great reminder for serious photographers to think about how to deal with such situations in the future and maybe think a bit before you act.
I have always had a principle of either taking photos from the edge of the field or walking along the paths that have been left in, for example, by tractor tracks. Or along the paths where some citizen has unfortunately already paved his own path. The goal is not to damage the field and to go home with a clear conscience to review my captures. Unfortunately, there are different people who don't think much about these things. However, I believe that if every year more people come along and think about next year's poppy field, whether to go into the field like a harvester to take photos or to have the pictures taken more politely, then we are already doing pretty good.
Victory Day morning Five days later, at 3 o'clock in the morning on Victory Day, I was back in the poppy field again. Next to the above-mentioned mowed field, there was another field still left and I was able to use it for photography. This time there were no other photography enthusiasts and I was alone in the poppy field and the whole field was mine. The weather forecast also promised fog and high clouds in the sky. However, I was most interested in the fog and began to visualize in my head how awesome and fabulous the entire poppy field would look with the fog. Unfortunately, it turned out that when I drove to the location, there was fog in most of the open areas, but where there was no fog was the poppy field where I wanted to take photos. Instead of the fog, there were high clouds in the sky and the colors were slowly starting to take shape. There was also a beautiful crescent moon shining in the sky and I initially captured various details both with and without the moon.
Best Poppy photo I have ever captured!
Since it was also a very calm morning with no wind, it gave me the opportunity to capture the photo I had dreamed of. The idea of ​​the photo was that, if nature allows, there would be colorful high clouds in the sky and poppies in the foreground. For the foreground, I like to get as close as possible to various objects with a wide-angle lens, because in my opinion, you can see their true beauty much better and it brings out their power even more.
However, to get this result you need to pass some problems. Well, maybe not a problem, but you simply have to use a little more specific techniques to make the photo happen. A little bit of technical talk now. If you focus on the poppies in the foreground, even at the smallest aperture, the entire photo from the foreground to the background will not be sharp. It is simply set in place by physics and that is how it works. But I still wanted to achieve this result here. To do this, I used a technique called "focus stacking", which landscape photographers often use to achieve a certain result. My Sony a7RV camera has a built-in function where the camera takes as many photos with different focus points as it deems necessary, so that later in post-processing I can combine all of these photos together to create a photo with maximum depth of field and that everything is in sharp. A total of 10 photos had to be taken in this case. The non-existent wind came in handy here, because the objects in the photo have to be still and not move. However, the poppy is a very delicate flower, so if there had been even the slightest wind and the poppies had moved in the frame, then using this technique would simply not have been possible. Everything fell into place and ended up working out very well, and I was able to capture my best photo of poppies I have ever taken.
Later, when the sun was already higher and the first light was starting to hit the poppies, I took some more photos of the details. I felt like I could take photos forever there, because there were so many different options and awesome poppies. Every small change in the shooting angle gave a completely new result. It's a complete pleasure to disappear into your own bubble like this and just capture the moments. I think I have enough photos now to cover my calendars month of June for some years :). Later, the song of cranes nearby brought me out of my bubble. Two cranes had landed unnoticed by me next to a poppy field. I also took some shots of this awesome moment, where the cranes were sharp in the distance and the blurry and soft red flowers of the poppy field in the foreground formed a nice combination. By that moment, it was already 5:30 and it was time to pack up my photo stuff and drive home.
Poppies together with the Cornflowers
After taking photos in poppy fields twice, both at sunrise and sunset, different thoughts started to come to my mind. I thought it would be pretty cool to find a field where poppies and cornflowers were mixed together. I have also said before that it is worth being careful with your wishes, they can come true. One day I found such a field and completely by chance, when I was driving with my family to the Midsummer celebrations. I marked the location on the map for the future and less than a week later I was back at this place. I arrived there about 2.5 hours before sunset to calmly explore the landscape and go through my thoughts. The field was actually not that big and massive at all, but rather a small part of a larger field. But that was enough to conjure up something special in terms of photos.
Generally, my plan for such photo shoots is always relatively the same. When the sun is a little higher, I shoot details and take advantage of the light. Later, when the sun is still lower and starting to set, I shoot more dramatic light to capture the final details. Also in this point I'm ready to capture the wider landscape with the setting sun. Once the sun has already set, I usually wait for the blue hour to capture the environment in bluish tones.
While working at the edge of this field, I had seen two single trees in the distance. Looking at the sun and its direction of movement, it began to dawn on me that perhaps the sun would set behind these two trees. I opened the Photopills app on my phone to check the direction of the sun's movement and that was it. The sun would set exactly behind the two trees and the last moment I would see the sun is exactly when it is between the two trees! It seemed like a perfect opportunity and it was time to start looking for a photogenic foreground to pair with the setting sun. The potential for a really cool photo was great. It didn't take much effort because the field itself was already so photogenic with its blue and red tones that I found a suitable spot pretty quickly. One of my main thoughts when taking the photo was that the cornflowers and poppies would be in balance with their tones in the frame. Not too much of one tone and too little of the other, etc. After a while, the sun was in its place and the moment was captured in the frame.
I waited for several more hours after sunset because the sky was clear and I hoped that maybe the noctilucent clouds would appear. In the north direction, I could have captured these mighty clouds with this field and that would have been absolutely amazing! This time I didn't get such an opportunity, but well, you can't do everything at once and you have to leave something for the next year right? :). By now, the poppies have already started to wither, but the cornflowers should still shine in full glory.
Before all these photo shoots at the beginning of June, I had quietly started to get the feeling that whether the Estonian summer with its weather would offer anything here to turn my photographic visions into reality. Then the weather slowly started to improve and things started to fall into place. The poppy and cornflower fields were found and now there are photos in my portfolio that I can proudly call my best that I have taken in this category.
You can find a gallery of my best photos here and other landscape photos here. I'm excited to see what July brings but all about that in a month! ;)