Otherworldly Micro Bloom
A few days after this isolated Antelope Valley bloom was photographed beneath a clear, cold sky, the same landscape was encountered under dramatically different conditions. Dark clouds were rapidly building over the distant mountains while breaks in the cloud cover shifted patches of light across the flowers below. The familiar combination of California poppies, goldfields and gray rabbitbrush suddenly appeared transformed, suspended beneath an immense and increasingly ominous sky.
I had photographed this same bloom a few days earlier beneath a clear, cold and windy sky. Returning to the location, the flowers and rabbitbrush were unchanged, but the weather was becoming something entirely different.
Clouds began building rapidly over the mountains and the light across the bloom changed almost by the minute. Areas that had been brightly illuminated suddenly fell into shadow while breaks in the cloud cover briefly lit other parts of the landscape.
At first, the darkening sky seemed like a reason to pack the equipment and leave. Instead, I began to realize that the changing conditions were creating something far more unusual than the clear-sky photographs I had originally expected to make.
The combination of the isolated bloom, distant mountains and enormous cloud-filled sky gave the landscape an almost otherworldly quality. What looked like deteriorating weather had become the photograph.