Pete Scifres, PPSA, GPSA
April 2026 - Nancy at Carrizo Plain
About the Image(s)
Every year with heavy rainfall in Southern California, we hope for cool wildflowers. The Carrizo Plain National Monument is frequently a good spot, and my wife and I stopped off there at the end of a short road trip. There were many good spots and some great ones.
My wife obligingly posed in this patch around 6:00 pm, carefully stepping through the flowers while looking out for rattlesnakes :-) I am up about 15 feet, just a few feet from my takeoff spot. I cropped it into a vertical and then just basic processing in post, along with some dodging and burning along the edges. As usual, in my landscape images, I added some Structure from DxO/Nik. I did not need to add or remove any elements.
3 comments posted
A lovely location and beautifully processed. I have mixed feelings about the person being a part of the picture. It would be a lovely shot of just the flowers and mountains. The flowers are a leading line off to the right side and out of the picture, and it would have been nice if you could have lined them up better to lead right down the middle towards the mountains.
But since you do have a person in the picture, I like how the purple contrasts with the yellow flowers. Nice color match. I'm just unsure if she is large enough in the picture to constitute an environmental portrait. Posted: 04/04/2026 17:55:52
But since you do have a person in the picture, I like how the purple contrasts with the yellow flowers. Nice color match. I'm just unsure if she is large enough in the picture to constitute an environmental portrait. Posted: 04/04/2026 17:55:52
I cruised around for 10 to 15 minutes looking for such a leading line. Nothing! ???? Posted: 04/06/2026 08:45:04
Hi Pete, beautiful image and a great landscape what with all the flowers and such. It's nice to have your wife in the photo but in my opinion I think that having her there but not obviously posing might be more interesting to the general public. Posted: 04/18/2026 20:57:01