Spring Green

Lifting Mist Chesterfielld NH

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been preoccupied with my Spring Waterfall Workshop and the preparation for my Introduction to Lightroom class.  Without realizing it, the spring color has been fading away, and it would be a tragedy if I didn’t spend at least as little time on the remarkably varied shades of green that mark this wonderful season.  While I have been scouting all the waterfalls, I have also tried to pay attention to the spring color, and I think it is time to celebrate the green.

Spring Sunset, Alyson's Orchard, Walpole, NH

I have been wandering through this spring’s images looking for those that reflect the excitement of the  exploding foliage.  As I have said many times, I feel that the spring greens populate a brief time which is comparable to the autumn color for both variety and interest.  The fall hues are gaudier but spring greens have a wonderfully warm and calming palate of colors. It is unfortunate that more “leaf peepers” don’t recognize the beauty of our “second leaf season”, but, then again, the quiet adds to the magic of the season.  Of course spring has the advantage of marking the much needed relief from the barren winter months, and perhaps most importantly, it is not immediately followed by the need to start raking.

Foral Steps, Spofford NH

So here is a collection of my images from this spring’s green, many of which I had to neglect as I focused on the waterfalls.  Falling water is the other major photographic treasure of this time of year, but as “stick season” happily  fades to a distant memory, it is time for newer life.

Check out more spring images in my Spring Green 2017 Gallery   
& in my voluminous
Spring in New England Gallery

Garwin Bloom, Wilton NH

 

Spring green always starts with the surprising promise of the first little buds, which seem to burst forth overnight. It is a time for macro photography, as the tiny shoots emerge with their delicate alien appearance.  These harbingers are not hard to find.  A simple stroll around my village yields all I need.

Tulip Path, Putney Vermont

As the leaves mature and begin to take on signs of their eventual summer morphology, I can pull back and explore the endless patterns of green.  Light and dark, and, the varying  intricate patterns of growth.  This is a time when the foliage is still fresh and not marked by insects, molds and the other inevitable ravages of the long summer.  For me, it is a time when nature’s purity can’t help but penetrate my mood with an remarkable sense of renewal.  

My Apple Blossoms, Spofford NH

Ok.  Enough of these spiritual ramblings.  Just look at the pictures!

A Favorite at Sunset

Whenever I get the opportunity, I enjoy aimlessly wandering through the spring color.  It is everywhere, but occasionally I get a chance to shoot in a special location that seems created for photography.  A couple of weeks ago I joined a group of dedicated supporters of Keene’s wonderful Colonial Theatre for a celebratory dinner.  Happily, the event was at one of my favorite farms in Keene, New Hampshire. Over the years, I have shot the farm in all seasons, weathers and light. It is in a perfect location and has been lovingly maintained. On this occasion I was able to drift away from the festivities to capture glorious spring in the fields, trees and building, all bathed in golden evening light. I wandered around the property in awe, jumping from one classic scene to another.  The bonus was that the food was great and I didn’t get infested with ticks.

In the City

Later in the season I spent an afternoon exploring the color around Keene’s downtown and the classic Old Stone Arch.  The color and detail of the architecture made a nice contrast to the soft textures of the new foliage.

Old Stone Bridge, Keene NH

Golden Hour and the Mists

Chesterfield, NH

On a number of occasions I got out in the morning to capture the warm light of the golden hour.  Warm light, especially when seen through the leaves, accentuates the greens.  Contrasting with the warm glow was the soft and mysterious light of misty spring mornings.  I always run out of the house to shoot whenever I awaken to the early morning fog.  It burns off all too quickly, but, while it lasts, the mood is magical.

Pasture Mist, Chesterfield, NH

Back to Lightroom

Sadly, but inevitably, the greens are settling into their summer hues.  There will be plenty of magic to capture this summer, but now I have to get back to my preparation for my Lightroom Class.  It is amazing that no matter how many times I present the class, it always feels like I'm starting from scratch.  I still have a couple of openings for the class which starts June 1st if you want to get a jump start on using this remarkably powerful program.

• Spring Green 2017 Gallery   
• Spring in New England Gallery

Jeffrey Newcomer

partridgebrookreflections.com

603-363-8338

Flower Photography

  

This week I stop to sniff, and photograph the flowers.

Last week was one those times when I was consumed in the “Blogosphere”.  It is normally a challenge to come up with one article each week for my regular Sunday “Getting it Right in the Digital Camera” Blog.  After over 300 blogs, it is becoming harder to find something that I haven’t already discussed 

One blog per week is often a struggle but several time per year I have to come up with two articles.  An essential responsibility of being a member of the New England Photography Guild is to contribute to the Guild’s excellent blog and last week my name came up on the schedule. My Guild article was about shooting in the midday sun, a time which is generally felt to be the worst for photography.  We are encouraged to limit the number of images in the Guild article and, as I often do, I used my regular blog as an album for the images that I couldn’t include for the Guild. 

Regardless of my strategy, my two blog weeks are always a struggle.  This week I decide to take a breath and wander through my flower pictures from this spring and summer, and discuss I few techniques I use to capture the beauty of these remarkable works of nature.

Flowers, in their amazing variety of form and color, are excellent subjects for photography.  Since nature does all the real work, It is almost impossible to get a bad picture, but it is often very difficult to capture a truly striking image that cuts through to the dramatic essence of the floral form and function.  As with all photography, it comes down to light, perspective and isolating a one or two key elements, but lets start with the camera.

Camera : Do You Need an Expensive DSLR?

Wide DOF IPhone 4S

I generally shoot flowers with my Canon 5d Mark II and my beloved 100mm Macro lens, but you can get excellent results with point and shoots and other cameras with smaller sensors.  Many of these cameras have Macro setting that allow close approach to the blooms, and cameras with small sensors also have inherently wider depth of field for any particular f stop.  

Canon SX50 HS

 I love the soft Bokeh from my full size sensor DSLR, and with careful focus stacking, I can achieve the precise DOF required around my subjects, but sometimes my Canon SX50 HS, with its small sensor, does a better job capturing the full flower in sharp focus.  The large DOF with small sensors can be a benefit and a liability.  IPhone seem to have almost infinite depth, but this can make it harder to isolate foreground blooms from the distracting background.

Bokeh with Canon 5D II

Soft Light

Flowers may appear brilliant on a sunny summer day, but up close, that light creates harsh contrasts and reflections that can smother the rich colors of the blooms.  Soft diffuse light is generally much better. It allows the colors to shine through and eliminates the struggle of dealing with bright highlights and deep shadows.  Lovely soft light can be found on overcast days, in the shade or with the use of a diffuser to mute the direct sunshine.  As I discussed last week, a polarizer can help cut the reflection off the foliage, but nothing works like natural diffuse illumination.  Rainy conditions are a great time to shoot flowers and foliage with the combination of soft light and the glisten of rain droplets.

The Wind

Persian Shield

Wind is a constant problem for flower photography especially when trying to place a paper thin zone of sharp focus on the tip of that pistil.  I have been frustrated as I focus and refocus, while waiting for a brief pause in the wind.  Often it is a matter of shooting multiple frames and hoping that one will miraculously appear sharp.  Sometimes it works, but I often descend to cheating, and seek locations such as greenhouses, which shield the flowers from the breeze.   

 

As I have discussed previously, greenhouses such as one at Walker Farm in Dummerston Vermont provide soft light and near total protection from the wind and the added bonus is that the flowers are labeled.             

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Perspective

Trans-Illumination

One of the easiest ways to capture a unique floral image is to change your perspective.  Too often I see photographers standing over the flowers shooting down.  Get close, get low and get dirty for more interesting shots.  On sunny days you may want to shoot through the flowers into the bright light.

Getting close should be a routine part of your approach.  I typically start with broader views of the garden and then progressively get closer, often to the point that I am, shooting only a small part of an individual bloom.  When shooting portraits, the rule always is to get the eyes in sharp focus and for flowers the eyes are generally the Stamen and Pistil.  Emulate the Honey Bee and focus on those reproductive organs and everything else can be soft. 

Simplify  Isolating the Flower

Simplifying your images is an essential rule for all photography and it is especially important for flower images.  The approach should always be to draw the eye and let it rest comfortably on the flower.  It is possible to create interesting compositions with bunches of flowers or garden arrays, but more often the most dramatic shots come by concentrating on one, or at most two or three flowers.  If you are shooting multiple flowers, remember the “rule of odds”.  In general, an odd number of anything, including flowers, creates a more balanced and pleasing composition.  Three is definitely better than two, but don’t get crazy, I wouldn’t spend time counting to make sure you have 101 vs 100 flowers in the frame.

For my best floral images, I frequently zoom in to just a portion of a single bloom.   Various other techniques can be effective at focusing attention including, getting close, removing and minimizing distractions with careful control of the background, limiting depth of field to the single flower or a portion of the bloom.

Post Processing

Distractions

Much can be done to improve floral images in post-processing.

After removing the dust marks and other flaws, I scan the edges of the image for distractions.  I clone away other distracting petals, stalks, or bright spots that might draw the eye away for the flower.  The Content Aware Fill tool in Photoshop has greatly simplified much of this often tedious work.  Some of these distractions can eventually be removed during cropping, but I usually remove most of the problems from the entire image before I make a final commitment about the final the framing. 

Shadow/Hightlight

 I often find that the detail in bright white petals can be lost in the glare, but it can be salvaged with the gentle use of the Shadow/Highlight tool in Photoshop.  The important thing is to avoid overdoing the effect and making the petals appear muddy. 

Simpliy

Local adjustments can be especially effective at isolating the key flower(s).  I typically make a careful selection of the blooms, and then selectively darken and or soften the focus of the background.  As I said earlier the Stamen and Pistil is the “eyes” of the flower and I will often selectively bright this area with a curves adjustment applied with a circular gradient mask.

My final steps are usually cropping, sizing, and sharpening, before any cropping, I always save a copy of the full resolution, edited image - I never know when I may need to re-purpose the original image.  I crop the final image tightly but most flowers tend to be “looking” in one direction and, as with human portraits, I try to give the bloom a little “nose” room.  

Selective sharpening is another way to focus attention on the flower and I usually apply the sharpening just to the flower, often isolating the greatest effect to the Stamen and Pistil.  Noise reduction can also be locally applied to further soften the background.

I could say more but I have a pile of floral images requiring editing and I’m exciting to see what will bloom from these natural wonders.

Spring Flowers

Walker Farm, Dummerston Vermont

 It's a Little More Colorful Than the Noble Lichen



There are times when life gets in the way of blogging. I remain committed to getting an article out every week (usually Sundays), but this has been one of those weeks when other responsibilities have made it difficult for me to generate my usual fresh, incite-full and voluminous content. The good news is that there is a very good reason for my time pressure. Our daughter Abigail is moving from DC to North Cambridge to be with her

The Depth, Spofford NH

boyfriend, and, needless to say, Susan and I are thrilled to have our daughter moving closer to home. Now if we could only get Jeremy to evacuate dreaded NYC for friendlier digs. Anyway we are getting ready to head down to Washington by the end of the week to help Abby with the move and that has become a significant but happy distraction. As a result I will focus this week's photographic musings on something quick and easily at hand, spring flowers.


Don't Ask Me the Name!
  
Flowers are easy to discuss because they are bursting forth everywhere and because I can summarize my entire understanding of the topic in three words. "Flowers are pretty". That's it, don't ask me to identify everything, all I can say is that flowers are natural miracles of structure, color and texture, and that they are a joy to photograph. The blooms are especially wonderful subjects for Macro Photography and I have been out with my 100mm Macro capturing all I can.


Walking Nellie

Day lilies Keene River Park

Whether cultivated or wild, flowers are everywhere this time of year, and I have been shooting along forest trails as well as at local gardens and parks, and my daily walks with Nelly through Spofford Village routinely yield colorful subjects. The trick is to wait for the wind to drop and to balance f-stop, shutter speed and ISO to achieve adequate depth of field. It is seldom possible to get everything in focus, but, if the stamen is sharp, the rest can fall out of focus without loosing impact. Interestingly I have captured some of my best floral macros with my compact Canon SX-50. The SX-50's small sensor

Lady Slippers - I Know These!

has a substantially larger Depth of Field than does my lovely full-frame monster and at times the sharpness seems to wrap around the petals. Flowers captured in natural settings are spectacular, but controlling the environmental conditions can be a frustrating struggle. It can help to shoot early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the light is soft and the wind light, but after spending hours waiting for the wind to calm, I begin to think about ways to cheat Mother Nature.

Rhododendron with Canon SX50

Flowers Served on a Platter
 On occasion a local whole-sale florist in Marlborough, New Hampshire lays large pallets of flowers on their parking lot and last week I dropped by in the evening to shoot the display in the soft light. With careful adjustment of angle the flowers can appear as if they were growing in an open field. The trick is to approach from low enough to avoid revealing the trays, baskets and pavement underneath. Of course shooting across the tops of the flowers makes capturing sufficient depth of field a challenge. This week there was a mild breeze and to avoid turning everything into a pastel blur I had to use faster shutter speeds and wider apertures than would have been best for maximum depth of field. Thank goodness for focus stacking. I used 7 stacked images to capture the field of blue image, which meant that, during the early editing, I had 14 image layers including the blended layers and non-blended correction layers. It can all be a strain on my computer's RAM, but fortunately, after the blending and clean-up, I could flatten everything to a single layer. My Marlborough florist doesn't bring out the pallets every year, but, when they do, it is an opportunity that I try never to miss. It may be considered cheating, but I have captured some of my best "flower field" images from this location, and, after all, the flowers don't know that they are in pallets.





The Big Greenhouse Cheat
 

As in previous seasons, I have been liberally cheating with photography of the flora in the protected environs of local greenhouses. Greenhouse photography tends to be screened from the wind and the soft diffused light eliminates reflection and glare. Once again the key is to avoid artificial distractions in the background








Walker Farm
 

 
Every spring I await Susan's announcement that it is time to get our spring plants at Walker Farm. Walkers is across the Connecticut River in Dummerston Vermont and is a wonderful place which, throughout the summer, has some of the best produce in the region. In the spring it also stocks trees, shrubs and flowering plants of all varieties.

Grand Finale, Dummerston, Vt

While Susan is loading up, I run to the green house to grab shots of the beautifully cultivated flowers and ground cover. This year I was a bit self-conscious about lugging my tripod around the flower beds and I paid the price. It was difficult to steady the camera at the slow shutter speeds that would have permitted the high f stops required for optimal DOF. I tried to find flowers that I could keep on one focal plane and focused on the center of the blooms.







Don't Try This at Home
 I also tried some hand-held focus stacking. Everyone, including me, will tell you that focus stacking requires a tripod to keep the view consistent. Having no tripod, I lined up my composition, broadened my stands and ran through the series of variably focused exposures. I did the best I could keeping the frame steady by fixing my center focus square on one spot in the scene. Photoshop, being the miracle that it is, did the job of aligning and blending remarkably well and I had very little clean-up to perform after the process. The picture of the mixed flowers was assembled from 5 hand-held, focus stacked images, but "DON'T try this at home". Focus stacking still requires a tripod!

Mountain Laurel, Ann Stokes Trail, Chesterfield NH

With what little time I've had this week, I have been trying to process a few of my flower images. I love working with the colors and textures to create macro floral "landscapes". When we get back from DC, I will return to these, but before that I have to get my daughter safely back close to home. Yea!

Jeff Newcomer
partridgebrookreflections.com