Tips to Photographing Flowers

This is a great month to capture colorful flowers. Here are some quick tips to remember when you do.

Camera tricks:

• Use a shallow depth of field (get your f-stop or aperture set to the lowest number you can.) This gives you a sea of color while making one flower pop out.
• Try a slow shutter speed, 1/30th, 15th or even 3 seconds, on a windy or breezy day. This creates a wonderfully pastel emotional image.
• Get close in, macro if you can. You will see unique detail rarely seen that will delight the viewer, especially if you print it very large.
• Bring along some tools – reflector cards to open up shadows, large cards to act as wind block. You can bring along a colored card or even a photo of a background to put behind the flower, have the background go out of focus for a believable transition.
• Set your file size to as large as you can for prints or cropping options.

Composition tricks:

• Get down low, “eye” level with the flower; unique angles always make flower shots interesting.
• Look for lines and shapes, like diagonals, s shaped curves to give the image a flow. Use them as foreground elements to frame your main subject.
• Photograph them really early in the morning or just as the sun goes down for rich soft light on them.
• Spray water on them for that morning dew look.
• Always place your “key” flower into the rule of thirds grid for most impact. Work with depth of field to isolate or find one that is a different color than the rest. Find one that is somehow different from its surroundings.

Unique uses:

• Use them as background elements to float smaller images on top off.
• Create a larger image and put real flowers in front of them.
• Use them on your timeline photo in Facebook.
• They can become texture overlays to your portrait photographs.
• Create your own greeting cards with them.
• Add inspirational copy to them then print or post them to mentally frame your day.

That old phrase, “stop and smell the roses” could also have you stopping to photo the flowers. They and their beauty don’t last long but a photograph will enrich your life with their beauty forever.