Wildflowers, Edgewood state park, SF bay area, CA

The Palo Alto Camera club organized a spring photography trip to Edgewood state park to shoot wildflowers. Locals tell me that Edgewood has the best wildflower blooms in the area. I love shooting wildflowers in California, the color and variety are par none. We started the trip at the Clarkia entrance to the park, this was a new entrance which I had not used before. It seemed far less crowded than the main entrance off Edgewood road where parking is a nightmare. However I was wrong - there are limited parking spots at this entrance and unless you get there early most spots seem taken. Luckily I got the last spot and was able to join the group on time. 

We hiked about a mile along the trail before we got the main bloom at the intersection of the Clarkia and Serpentine trails. The main blooms were of Coastal TidyTips, California poppies, Indian paintbrush, Blue eyed grass and California buttercups. I mainly focused on macro shots with my Canon 100mm macro. The wind picked up every now and then, but it was manageable. I didn't have my hat with me - so getting the shade for the macro shots was also a challenge. I typically hand hold my macro's, since it gives me a lot of flexibility with composition.  I also tried to shoot with my telephoto (Canon 100-400) but struggled with composition and quickly reverted back to the macro lens. The bloom was not dense enough to make interesting compositions with a wide angle lens.

While I was shooting macro shots of the California Tidytips, I noticed there were small aphids on the flowers! This was a pleasant surprise and made for some great Macro shots. I jacked up the ISO and handheld the macro shots since it was at an awkward angle. With macro shots you can only tell if you got a good shot once you pull it up on the big screen. I kept my fingers crossed, luckily I got a few good shots.

It also happened to be the hottest day of the year so far (80 F) - so I did not last long and scurried back after shooting for a couple of hours. I look forward to revisit the location to try out other wildflower compositions.