The grass whispers to me...

This image came about because I wanted to make a series of wallpapers for my desktop computer. My thoughts were that I would like to look at something relaxing when my screen wasn't occupied by spreadsheets, files and email.

So I started to think about the things that I found relaxing and peaceful. After a while, I recalled some really powerful and evocative memories of my childhood. Things like playing on a swing, or spinning around like a top until I fell over from dizziness. One particular memory was of just lying in the grass on a summer day, watching the clouds being blown across the sky by the wind. I could pull a stalk of grass and chew on it while trying to decipher the changing cloud-shapes. The grass was moving softly in the breeze, almost as if it was whispering some secret to me.

Wondering whether it would even be possible to recreate such a memory and feeling, I started to envisage how to set up the shot. Adult perspectives are very different from childhood ones, and I tried to picture myself lying somewhere on a grassy hill madly taking pictures in the hope that one would somehow magically recreate my childhood memory. It didn't seem practical, so I decided that I would have to go back to first principles and start again.

I thought that the sky wouldn't be such a problem providing I had a suitable day - blue sky, fluffy white clouds being blown about. I figured that if I kept the background sky out of focus the colours of the clouds and sky would work well. The grass was still something I was worried about. We are in the middle of a severe drought and lush green grass is somewhat difficult to find.

Finally, when I was watering our balcony pot plants on one of our scheduled watering days, I found myself looking at a pot of chives that my wife keeps as part of her herb garden. The breeze was indeed moving the stalks of the chives, and they were very green and quite tall and willowy.

I was able to put the pot of chives on the ledge of the balcony, and I got my camera and knelt down below the level of the pot so that I could shoot through the chives up into the sky. It was a lovely spring day, so the sky was a magnificent blue and the clouds were made to order.

After about a dozen shots, I felt that I might have the image that I had been mentally painting, and when I downloaded the files to the computer I was really happy. All I had to do was give the colours a touch more saturation, and crop the image to the 16X10 format that I wanted for my screen.

And the resultant picture is at the top of this post. I hope you like it.

EXIF: Nikon D200; Micro Nikkor 105mm; ISO 320; 1/250 sec; f14.

TFF