Pitching Waves of Color
Bands of blue, orange, yellow and maroon wildflowers follow the contours of the hills, creating the appearance of waves moving across the landscape. From a distance, individual flowers merge into broad fields of color, revealing the extraordinary density and scale of the 2003 bloom across Gorman and Peace Valley.
This photograph was made on the Gorman Hills in 2003, during what turned out to be the best—and last—super bloom to occur there. Difficult to see in the online image, small black-maroon dots scattered among the flowers are the elusive California jewel flower, distinguished by its unusually deep maroon coloration.
These top-heavy blooms perch on long, slender stalks that sway with the slightest breeze, making them particularly difficult to photograph during the longer exposures often required for landscape photography.