Poppyfield Portrait Photoshoot

Hi! I’m Annemarie and I am a (virtual) photographer in Bamberg, Germany. (At least that’s my current base but I work internationally and remote as well.) To celebrate poppy season and capture the fleeting beauty of the fragile flowers, I painted my arms and popped out of a poppyfield dressed in red.

Here’s a little breakdown of the creative process.

If you’re interested to learn more about how to work with me or just to connect, schedule a Chit Chat.

red poppies in a field of corn and grass

Anxiety over Temporariness

According to Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, temporariness is a “noun. /ˈtemprərinəs/ /ˈtempərerinəs/ [uncountable] the state of lasting or being intended to last or be used only for a short time; the state of not being permanent opposite permanence.“

And while such transient states of floral events bring me incredible joy and make me feel grateful for the wonders of nature, they also cause anxiety in me.

And I’m not talking about Spring depression or reverse SAD, which is a form of seasonal affective disorder brought on by seasonal change for various reasons.

I always feel like I have to catch them all. To take some time and admire them. But then to capture their beauty in photos too. Spring especially is peppered with amazing flowering times. Winter aconites, plum blossoms, cherry blossoms, bluebells, wisteria, azeleas and poppies, to name just a few.

Ideally, I keep track of them, but often life and work gets in the way. Or I let it because, downtime is essential and creativity especially thrives off impulsive joyful pursuits, such as flower chasing. It certainly does for me.

medium shot of arms folded in front of a red dress. red poppies are painted on them — poppies painted on arms

woman in red dress and black wig posing in a poppyfield — poppies painted on arms

It might stem from my background of professionally creating content for travel blogs and travel businesses, which I started doing in 2014. It’s been nearly a decade! And it certainly has had a lasting effect on me.

I cannot simply travel to places, locally or abroad, without wanting to scout places, frame visuals and execute my vision to sometimes way-too-high a standard. Everything is content. But content shouldn’t be everything.

Sadly enough, I seem to have trained myself to seek out fresh angles to share but then get overwhelmed and don’t share. Creation can come at a cost and I am working on reducing that one in particular.

In the end, there’s no one pressuring me but me.

People don’t know the content I am thinking about creating anyway, so they can’t even demand if they wanted to.

Even so, I don’t owe anyone content.

arms painted with poppy flowers raised from a corn field with red poppies

Taking time out to admire beauty in daily life shouldn’t be a chore. Sometimes, the manifestation culture can make it seem like another thing on the to do list somehow. Practice gratitude. Schedule the journalling. Consciously relax etc. You don’t have to be working in content creation to feel this.

Sometimes, it’s just giving yourself space to do whatever without any limitations that does the trick. And just acknloweding that you took mental note of that, took a breather or just didn’t force it and hustle too hard that day are enough.

I guess this post is more of a memo to myself but maybe someone else can use this little braindump as well.

All that being said, I didn’t miss the window of opportunity for a portrait photoshoot in a poppy field. My camera app tried its darndest to sabotage me. (It’s high time Nikon actually made its SnapBridge up work properly, if you ask me. The focus feature is horrendously frustrating.)

I’m proud that I did it in time and not waited around. If I had let the opportunity pass me by, that would’ve been ok too.