There is something magical about flower photography. The colors, textures and shapes created by nature are beautiful. Photographing flowers is possible with any type of camera. Let me share a few tips to keep in mind the next time you are outdoors with your camera, capturing some of the beauty of nature around you.
When photographing flowers, outdoors, it is important to be aware of the wind, the movement of the flowers, as it may cause a blurry photo if you aren’t able to increase your shutter speed to quickly capture the image. But I find that by taking a moment to study the flowers, it usually is possible to find a moment when the wind is still. An alternative is to move yourself around the flowers, trying to find a spot that minimizes the flow of the wind; sometimes your body can create a shield against the wind, if you can get very close to your subject. There are tools you can use to help keep a flower still, such as a plamp, that you can purchase or you can make your own. I have never used one, preferring to wait out the wind and find a quiet moment to snap my photo, but I do think they are a great idea and could be very helpful. This could be a fun DIY project.
If you had a reflector with a stand (or handhold or lean it against something) you could provide a bit of fill light onto your subject but this could also be used to help diffuse the wind too. Some refectors will fold up into a small size and small stands are available, making it not too cumbersome to pack up and bring with you outdoors. I prefer to travel as light as possible, as my flower photography is usually done while I am on a photo walk, meandering around a park or garden, so my goal is to carry as light a bag as possible. These items are not crucial to flower photography but they can be very useful, so it’s a personal decision.
Depending on the camera you use, on whether you can adjust the aperture, the depth of field affects the outcome of your image. A shallow depth of field can create a pleasing blurriness to the background/foreground, while you focus on your subject for maximum sharpness. When using a DSLR camera, I often shoot with an aperture around 2.8, 3 or 3.5 when photographing 1 or 2 flowers which creates a pleasant bokeh. If I am photographing a larger area of flowers, I will bump up the aperture to include a larger area of focus, around 4 or 5. Don’t worry, it isn’t necessary to use a DSLR to photograph flowers, your point & shoot camera, iPhone, etc will all work well too. You may not be able to change the aperture thereby changing the bokeh/blurriness but you can work with the lighting and composition of your framing to enhance the quality of your image.
The lighting is important no matter what camera you use. The best time to get outdoors for flower photography is early morning and late in the day (they call it the golden hour, as the sun is setting in the sky). At these times the sun is lower on the horizon, providing a softer wrap-around light that is most attractive for flower photography. An overcast day is also a wonderful time to get outdoors to photograph flowers. This will also provide a softer wrap-around light. I often go for a photowalk first thing in the morning, around 7:30 am and will head back to my car by 10:30 am, as the sun is getting higher in the sky.
You can’t always pick the optimum time to photograph, so you have to work with the lighting there is. If the sun is high overhead, you can try to find a shady spot to photograph in or you can change the perspective of your framing to try to minimize the effects of the harsh sunlight. Change your position, get down low, looking up to the subject, or along the same horizontal plane, and then try looking down at your subject, to see which provides the best framing for your shot. Move around, take a few photos and look at how the light has effected your image.
Lastly, take a moment to check the background, is it distracting or do the colors complement the flowers? Moving yourself just slightly can make a big difference in the framing of the flowers. For my sample photos, I squatted down and shot horizontally, eliminating the sky.
I hope these tips help the next time you get outdoors to take photos of the flowers.
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