Over the years I've taken umpteen studies of flowers. Here I'm demonstating some basic techniques which can be used to enhance your work and hopefully give you some pleasing results.
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| Where you are not cropping in very tightly to the subject, think about the background.. |
Here I used the black glass to show the rest of the boquet but still isolate the main flower, it also added some nice contrast. It pays to try a few different angles to ensure the background is not too distracting.
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| Cropping in tightly can show texture and colour |
In the shot above, I cropped in to fill the frame (hence no distracting background). Try to avoid getting the centre of the flower in the centre of the shot, again, try different angles. I have opted to have the centre of the flower in the top left third which is more pleasing. I also used strong flash to get some rich colour, but be careful of the overly strong contrast this can cause.
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| Desaturation of surroundings |
Another way to remove distracting backgrounds and to give a 'pop' of colour is to apply what is sometimes referred to as 'selective colouring'. This can be achieved in many ways. In Photoshop or Gimp you would need to go into layers (there are many tutorials about this on-line); in Lightroom, it's dealt with fairly simply, either by an adjustment brush, or saturation sliders.
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| Hi-key shots can look fairly 'arty' if you can be patient enough to get the lighting just right |
Here, I took a few shots manually, adjusting the aperture and shutter speed after each one until I was happy with the outcome. If you're going to attempt this you'll need to go into 'manual' mode or if you're using a point and shoot camera, deactivate the flash. Take an initial shot and review the results. Again, depending on what sort of camera you're using it's probably going to sense that the scene is very brightly lit and the exposure will come out with a very dark foreground and nicely exposed sky. To remedy this, point the centre of the camera to a darker area and press the shutter half way down, this will lock the exposure, now move the camera back to the scene you want to shoot and press the shutter the rest of the way down. Hey-presto (or maybe not, like I said it takes practice!)
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| Try different things and see what works |
In the shot above, the plan was to create an image that could be used as a wall print. I've broken the general 'rule of thirds' by placing the subject dead-centre. However, I have made this image different to others by desaturating one side of the flower to add and interesting effect, I also added some blurring to the desaturated side.
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| Soft tones have a calming effect |
Almost a macro shot concentrating on the stamen of the Lilly. Soft shadows giving some texture and a tight crop to fill the frame completes the shot.
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| Macro shots can show the everyday to be special |
By using a very close up pov this Dandilion (what we usually refer to as a weed) has been transformed into an image with a soft texture and bold background. If you have a macro setting on your camera get creative, you'll be surprised with the results.
I hope you found this useful. I'd be interested to know if you've gained some good results from the advice. Please feel free to get in touch via commenting or email. I'd be happy to collate an entry on the blog with your images and names!
