One of the most iconic local settings for a family photo is the tulip fields of Skagit County. And like any salmon-eating, coffee-sipping, true parent of the Pacific Northwest, I have coveted not only a visit to the tulips, but a glorious family photo to document the happy occasion.
When my oldest son was a baby, I worked weekends to my husband’s regular work week. Family time, particularly family photo time, was hard to come by, especially when it needed to coincide with the tulips’ two-week bloom window. But we loaded the kids into the car for the 70-minute drive up I-5 to Mount Vernon.
And what a sight! There are acres upon acres of tulips. The fields just begged to be photographed. The long, graphic rows of plants and bright colors guarantee a fabulous backdrop for pictures. While the Tulip Festival officially takes place in April, the bloom can come earlier. Colder weather means a later tulip season. Rain, interestingly enough, has little to do with tulip-bloom timing. In 2024, our warm has helped with an early bloom.
[ More on the Tulip Festival: Details on the 2024 event; 5 tips for a successful trip ]
A photographer-mom’s Tulip Festival photo tips
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PHOTO: JIAYING GRYGIEL |
1. Visit on a weekday morning if you can. Otherwise, the background of your photo will be crowded with other people. This is a very popular outing.
2. Your best bet weather-wise is a cloudy day. The sky acts like a giant softbox, throwing even light over everything. When we drove up, the forecast called for showers, which turned into a bright, sunny day. Great, right? But bright sunlight can create harsh shadows. If it’s sunny, try having your subjects stand with their backs to the sun. You can get some pretty rim light that way, and your kids won’t be squinting in all the pictures.
3. Make sure your kids are rested and fed. Kids don’t have poker faces. They radiate joy when they’re happy, and are terrible photo subjects when they’re tired, hungry and cranky. Keep it fun!
4. Dress your kids in bright colors. The colorful tulips need bright subjects. Bring a complete change of clothes for each kid. Plus, jumping in mud puddles is lots of fun and makes for exciting pictures, but it can be messy and cold.
5. Visitors shouldn’t walk down the rows between the flowers. We fudged that and stood at the ends of rows so it looked like we were among the tulips. Keep in mind this is a working farm, and those tulips are someone’s crops. This year, some rows of flowers are not not planted fully out to the edges, making for good opportunity to pose as though you are in the flowers, but not directly in the rows.
6. Try to get a variety of pictures. A wide picture shows the layers of colors in the fields, a close-up of beautiful flowers, and a great moment of your kids having fun.
7. Cellphone or camera? The biggest, fanciest camera in the world isn’t any good if it’s not with you. But most people are attached to their phones like a fifth appendage. You can’t fiddle as much with the settings, but iPhones (and all other modern smartphones) take photos with large file sizes. You can get really nice, high-quality colors at high resolution out of a device that fits in your pocket.
8. If you have a digital SLR, bring a long lens (like 80-200mm) to compress those scenic layers of colors. I shot most of these pictures at f/2.8, ISO 200, and pushed the shutter speed up to 4000 as the sun came out. Did that sound like gibberish to you? Forget all that. Your camera phone is perfectly good for capturing happy kids with beautiful flowers. In addition, you’ll have a great picture if you have great subjects.
9. Separation of church and state, or juice box and camera equipment. Bring along Sherpa spouse; don’t put in the same bag.
10. A photo release is required if you’re using your photographs commercially.
11. No picking flowers! The kids will want to pick flowers, so alert them ahead of time that at this special garden, there is absolutely no flower picking.
12. No pets and no drones!
More on the Tulip Festival
Mount Vernon’s two main nurseries are RoozenGaarde and Tulip Town. We’d heard good things about both. Pack a picnic or hit the concessions stand for some of their burgers, veggie burgers, hot dogs, popcorn, cookies and coffee drinks at both. Diners can eat at a tented area with tables.
At the entrance of RoozenGaarde, you walk straight into a five-acre display garden with more than a quarter-million bulbs. RoozenGaarde is a family-owned company started by William Roozen, who emigrated from Holland in 1947. We loved looking at all the fancy varieties with frilled edges and layered petals. We picked up a free nursery catalog (one for each kid) as an easy souvenir. The biggest attraction for us was walking through the spectacular rainbow of tulips in the adjacent fields.
RoozenGaarde’s crowd control was impressive: Flaggers directed cars in the parking lot, a crossing guard mans the street, and another staff member pointed visitors to the field. If you go early, you can catch the rows and rows of daffodils on site too.
Visiting the Skagit Valley tulip fields is so worth the drive — and far cheaper than going to Holland.
