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?
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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.
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| 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.
I
hope everyone is doing well and using your photographic explorations to help
manage your way through the maddening pandemic isolation. Our exuberant New England spring has displayed
a widely varied supply of color and new growth. The inspiration seems
endless, from bursting new buds to spreading young leaves, in a riotous array
of shades of green. For me, all I have to do is grab my camera and head,
socially distant, out of the door, and that has been my sad problem.
Over
this last, gloriously perfect, week of the spring, I have been completely
crippled by a severe pre-patellar bursitis and cellulitis. The result has been
that, while the spring colors have evolved, I have been hobbled with a walker
and limited from bed to chair. I thought
my Covid isolation was a problem enough, but at least I could get out for nice
long walks and drives, but now I have been limited to gazing longingly out my window
or up into the trees from my porch. 
First,
I have experimented with various ways to securely attach my subjects in the
studio. For the sturdy, woody branches, one of my old surgical clamps
worked well, but these devices proved too sharp and tight for the delicate
ferns. They cut right through, and the greens quickly flopped. On one occasion, I was struggling to maintain
focus and then realized that the plant was slowly bending under the
pressure. I found that the
solution was to tape the stems to a piece of mat board which could then be
securely attached to the clamp. 
