Leon Turnbull Photography

After work last week, I took the whole family up to Folsom Lake to a particular spot I know where there is a fabulous field of lupines. I wasn’t sure if they would be blooming yet, but I was rewarded as they were out in full display. I took a number of photos, but this was the only one that really turned out. And I really love this photo, with the unnamed creek on the left and the sun setting over the distant hills, giving some last illumination to the lupines.

The kids had a blast running along the trail, throwing rocks into the river, playing in the sand, and trampling all the flowers. Actually, I tried to keep them out of the flowers, and they did a good job for the most part. Though, there may have been a couple that bit the dust.

Now, I’m not much of a flower person. I mean, I love flowers (especially wildflowers), but I don’t usually take photos of them. Why is that, you ask? When I take photographs, I like showing the whole landscape. In fact, if you look through my website, you will notice very few intimate close-up photos of waterfalls. There may be a few, but not too much. I like showing the whole waterfall in my photos, not just an intimate close-up of part of it. It’s just a personal preference; what I like to do. So that is why I would never photograph a close-up flower shot. But if I can photograph a broad landscape scene with flowers in it, then most definitely I will do it. That was my goal at Folsom Lake, and I think I accomplished that quite well.

By the way, this location is at the end of the lake, at Old Salmon Falls, which is an old townsite that was flooded when the Folsom Dam was built many many years ago. All that is left at this old site is the Old Salmon Falls bridge, which is under water most of the time, except when the lake level is very low. Last year, we had a very dry year here, and the bridge was fully visible. But now, the lake level is rising again. Only the very top of it is now showing, and it will probably be under water completely within another week.