The Nature of Travel
Day 5 Lens selection.
Day 5: Lens selection, Selecting out the composition and compressing the field.
The lens you choose has a great deal for how you render a photograph and it is very true even with flower photography. The first and go to lens for most people thinking about photographing a flower would often be a macro lens. It is true a macro lens does allow you to get close and bring in all the intimate detail of a bloom but digging out a telephoto may allow new options to compose and draw out you vision.
I enjoy the fact a telephoto or telephoto zoom lens allows me to step back from a subject and reach in close at the same time, but there are other properties about these powerhouse lenses I enjoy more. When leading photo trips I work to get my travelers to practice isolating what in a scene really attracts or catches their eye. I find a using a telephoto to be a good way from an the image maker to reach for the isolated view and extract out what it is catching the eye. This is a great way to remove any elements of a scene that distract from what you are attempting to portray. I also enjoy the fact that longer lenses tend to compress the field of view. Telephoto compression is the ability of a longer lens to bring the foreground into a closer plane with the back ground, compressing the image and flattening it out. I often catch myself saying things like," telephoto compression takes a three dimensional world down to a two dimensional world, while I am leading my photo trips." The longer lenses will not really help with adding depth of field but the compression will help with separation of your subject from the back ground.
Tulip field
In this example of the tulips the 300mm perspective smashes the flowers down to a tighter plane creating a much more dense composition of color and pattern.
Day 4 Working the backlight.
Backlight is one of may favorite types of light to work with flowers and it is one of the easiest to use. Most flowers are somewhat translucent, and just moving to the opposite side of the flower from the source of the light changes the scene dramatically. The petals and sometimes the leaves, filter the light coming through them, creating this effect that I compare with stained glass light. Backlighting your subject this way is great for bringing out and saturating the colors. I also believe the back light brings out a depth and dimension that will add extra life to your flower photography. Another bonus is the out of focus highlights can help with framing your focal flower. This can be done at all times of the day but will be easier and work best in the earlier and later hours of the day. Near high noon, you will have to get very low to back light the blossoms. Give this a try the next time you are out. The exposure is usually easy, check your histogram and make any adjustments needed at the time.
Day 3 Drama and direction of light.
Day 3: Enjoy the light.
When you find a subject or subjects get in move around, working the light. For some situations sunny days work great but try getting out and photographing in the shadow as the sun hits overhead. Bad weather can work for great images too. Rain and overcast days will soften out shadows and add much appreciated detail. I especially enjoy woking in shadowy forests using the play of light on sun dappled understory to my advantage.
For this image, I moved around until I had a dark forest background and just one lone flower in the much brighter highlights of the sun lighting it up. This is the kind of lighting that adds impact to an image and reminds me of stage lighting where only one performer is lite up, focusing everyones attention on them.
Day 2 Composition
Day 2 Thinking about composition.
As a rule, I often state there are no rules, when it comes to composition. That said, almost anything can work, it might just take a little exploring. When photographing flowers, I often think like a florist. I ask myself what would be the best way to arrange these flowers, but instead of a vase, I am arranging them in a frame. By no means does that mean I cut the flowers and arrange them the way I want. Instead I move myself around the natural arrangement using my camera/lens combination to move in and out to allow the composition to include what I want from the scene and how the light falls on the blossoms. Sometimes general guidelines for flower arranging can apply to photography as well. In this example I make the use of three blossoms to create a balanced but pleasing composition of three wild geraniums. I think the use of three allows the viewer eye to move freely and naturally through the frame. In this case not all of flowers have to be in the same plane of focus, maybe because the up front blossom allows the viewer the detail to fill in for the other two softer flowers?
Composition is best tried out in each given situation. This is a great place for a photographer to have fun and spend some time exploring with eye and camera.
Blossom Week. Day 1
I have wondered far from my intentions of a working blog with ideas and tips about photography so, I think I need a restart. I am thinking a small restart might help me with the intentions to move forward and publish more photos and explore my own photography at a greater depth. Little ideas can go a great distance. With summer here, I thought a few entries on flower photography tips might be a good way to get going.
With spring and summer most photographers have ample opportunity to slip into a world of color. I am lucky, for where I live, I can head off in every direction and find the beauty and color flowers lend to nature for the short months of spring and into summer. Most folks can find seasonal blooms for them selves, sometimes close by their own home or by traveling further into the field. If you are looking, sometimes it only takes slowing down and looking close, some flowers are big and bold but many require a little closer attention to discover. I often find my self crawling around in a field or forest floor examining and photographing the colorful blossoms that present themselves each season. If you have difficulty tuning into the seasonal flowers in your area, talk with local arboretums, gardens or check the internet. The modern web offers the curious browser seasons and schedules for most flowering plants in just about every corner of the world.
I have assembled together a few of my tips to getting out and making the most of the natures finest with the hopes it will add to your creative quest for seeking wonderful images of flowers. Read through, these are not a complete list of ideas just a few to get you going. I will add one new tip for each day of this week to live here on the blog. Get out and have fun and happy shooting.
Day 1 Getting close, this is where the details live. This image of a very close up of Arrowleaf balsamroot flower, showing the detail in the florets of this cheery early summer flower would be a great start. It reminds me of the simple but elegant beauty of flowers and all they are composed of.
Balsamroot details; by getting in very close and photographing with nothing more than a iPhone and a macro lens I was able to extract a much smaller scene from a field of these radiant beauties. Flower photography may mean stepping back and capturing images of entire mountainsides covers in the color of summertime blooms or it may entail crawling in close for the intimate detail of a single blossom. Getting close, establishes impact and a relationship with your subject. A good day out photographing flowers allows me to ground myself in my location and subject.
*Please note: Anytime you get close to flowers, be cautious not to step on, break, cut, crush or just outright disturb the plant growth you are there to photograph. Often times these plants may have been waiting years to flower and complete their reproductive season. Leaving no trace that you were there will help provide you, and others with the satisfaction that the plant life will continue its cycle un-interupted.
