Poppies, along with sunflowers, are floral icons in Tuscany. Each spring, large fields blossom with poppies, drawing hordes of photographers who arrive to harvest the images. It seems to be difficult to plan in advance; fields that are in full bloom one year may have just a few flowers the next. We’d been on the lookout for massed poppies and had bypassed some small fields with poor backgrounds, waiting to bag the big catch. We spotted this field from several kilometers away – a large orange splash in a sea of green. We arrived to find that another photographic group had beaten us there and, by amazing coincidence, the tour leader and several participants were known to members of our party. (The world is indeed a small place. This fact was underscored over the next few days when we repeatedly bumped into groups of individual photographers known to us personally or by reputation.) This field, perhaps a mile long and 200 meters wide, was plenty big enough to swallow up several groups of photographers. (It also swallowed up my polarizing filter which came off my lens at some unknown point. If someone finds a 100mm square Lee polarizer in this field, please return to me. Reward! The field is along the Strada Provinciale 53 between Bagno Vignoni and Spedaletto.)