Tulip hoppin’

Somewhere there’s a list entitled “No-brainer photo opps,” and giant tulip fields are surely on it. (And nope, I did not TOUCH the saturation settings on the above photo. That’s the way it looked.)

Kat and I spent Sunday morning wandering the fields of Wooden Shoe Tulip Farms south of Portland, taking pictures and people-watching. It was a beautiful spring day just begging for a convertible with the top down and the tulips were only an hour away, so off we went. As is usual for me, people-watching probably edged out tulip-shooting…but not by much.

I once bought 900 tulip bulbs (yeah, yeah, but they were on sale) and was thrilled with my purchase until my mom reminded me that the only way to actually watch them bloom was to plant them…one by one. Not being of a gardening persuasion, that was pretty much a bummer which ruined a good manicure, but I’ve had at least a few tulips blooming in the yard ever since.

So I don’t need to drive an hour to see a tulip. On the other hand, I can’t see several thousand of them from my back porch, either, and as gardening folk suggest, massing them does make a difference:

Tulips weren’t the only masses out there–a couple hundred tulip-tiptoers showed up with us. Wooden Shoe Farms lets you tiptoe through the tulips for free, but it costs $10 to park the car and there’s the usual spendy sausage rolls and drinks, anthropomorphic-trams-pulled-by-tractors and funny jumpy-screamy things for the kiddies. About the only bargains are the tulips–3 great bunches for US$12–and we both took home an armful.

I lugged the good camera, tripod and shutter release down the fields (I’ve lost too many great shots to camera shake not to use them), stopping frequently to snap a bloom or catch the inevitable sweep-across-fields-to-Mt.-Hood-on-the-horizon shots. Truth be told I was late to Kat’s house and the light was a tad flat for my tastes by the time we arrived, but I did OK.

Apparently the tripod also makes me look like I know what I’m doing, because two groups stepped over OTHER camera-toting tulip fiends to ask if I’d take group shots of them, with their cameras. In return, I got a couple shots in of my own, and got hung up on taking pictures of people taking pictures.

This is Vijaya, whose friend was visiting from Pakistan; I think the two of them in their bright cottons caught as many photographs as the flowers. She asked if I’d shoot a couple of her, sitting in the tulips as her friend didn’t trust herself with their fancy borrowed digital camera.

I said sure, and she plopped down in the middle of the rows. If the mud bothered her, she didn’t let on; she just smiled and I got my shot. Then Kat and I moved on, chasing people and petals. 

It was all great fun, and we headed back to the gift shop to track down some parrot tulips, Kat’s favorite. And there was my money shot, ironically NOT of tulips or people:

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