Tulips against the sun

Unusual perspectives can be quite compelling. For this picture taken in Holland during tulip season, I laid on the ground and used a 14mm lens shooting up toward the sun. The star effect comes from the fact that my lens aperture was small -- f/22 in this case. I wanted as much depth of field as possible, and that necessitated a small aperture. The camera position was just 12 inches from the flowers. It was such an awkward position that I didn't use a tripod. For the exposure, I checked the LCD monitor carefully because I was shooting right into the sun. I used the exposure compensation feature to tweak the exposure until it was perfect. The shutter speed was 1/50 and the ISO 200. I'm leading another photo tour to Holland and Belgium in April, 2020 to photograph the most beautiful display of flowers in the world. In post-processing, I added a little diffusion in Photoshop.