flower photography

photography of flowers

Flowering Trees at a Cemetary

Kevin

I love the season of flowering trees; sadly, in the northeast, the season only lasts maybe six weeks.

Ornamental flowering trees are commonly planted in many different spaces ranging from residential gardens to corporate office parks. One category that commonly hosts plantings of beautiful trees is cemeteries. While it may seem odd to some people, I’ve seen people of all sorts and ages strolling through cemeteries, even having a picnic. Last weekend, I visited a cemetery in Wakefield. Although the crabapple trees had all dropped their colorful petals, I counted more than two dozen dogwood trees in bloom.

From that short excursion, I wanted to share a comparison of two images of the same tree but photographed with wide-angle lens and a telephoto lens. There are a few reasons why you might choose to use one or the other. When in doubt, shoot them both.

The first reason you might choose a telephoto lens is because you can’t get close enough to your subject. I personally encountered that scenario a couple weeks ago, stopping to photograph cherry trees in bloom at a cemetery where the gates were locked. I photographed from outside the fence using a 100mm lens.

The second reason you might choose to use a telephoto lens is to control the background. The narrow field of view may enable you to exclude elements from the background. And a wide-angle lens can include more background, for more environmental context. In the two photos I’ve shared here, both the telephoto and the wide-angle image do show the environment context, but a telephoto also allowed me to exclude the tombstones entirely.

A third reason to choose either telephoto or wide-angle is depth perception. Wide-angle lenses commonly exaggerate distance; multiple subjects in the photograph appear to be farther apart, compared to using a longer/telephoto focal length. Conversely, telephoto lenses tend to compress distance, making multiple subjects (at different distances from the camera) appear closer together.

Lastly, when you have multiple subjects at very different distances, a telephoto lens combined with a small aperture may allow blurring the background – if that’s the effect you’re seeking to create. Both the images here employ an aperture about f\4.5.

2021 Cherry Blossom Watch : Boston MA

2021 Cherry Blossom Watch : Boston MA

Kevin

For some folks, the annual blooms of flowering trees are highly treasured. While other trees – magnolias, crabapple, etc – are spectacular, ornamental cherry trees are commonly deemed to be the pinnacle of flowering trees. In Japan, the word Hanami means the viewing enjoyment of flowers (hana), but specifically the blossoms of cherry trees.

In Tokyo Japan, the reported peak blooming occurred around March 22. In Washington D.C., it was March 28 this year. But here in the northeast USA, the blooming is just starting.

Here are a few samples from Boston this past weekend. The first photo is of a Saucer Magnolia in full bloom. The squirrel sits upon a Yoshino Cherry tree that has not yet bloomed at all. The close-ups are both Sargeant Cherry as it was just beginning to bloom.

Tulips at Boston Public Garden

Tulips at Boston Public Garden

Kevin

The tulips at Boston Public Garden. are an annual rite of spring.  They are fun to photograph and I wanted to share some techniques with you.

BPG-1320

This first image was shot at 7am on a Saturday morning.  Early morning may be the only time when the garden isn’t swarming with people.  To visually compress the distance, I used a 200mm lens.

tulips-5273

This next image is different for several reasons.  Of course, this is a closer view.  Using a 100mm macro lens at an aperture of f/7, the depth of field is shallow.  I chose to fill the frame with flowers and exclude the surrounding environment.  Also note that the light is very different.  I shot this image after 6pm with the evening sun directly shining on the flowers from the side.

tulips-5282

Getting even closer, the image becomes more abstract.  The image is about color and texture; the concept of “tulip” begins to disappear.  I specifically chose to use an evergreen shrub for the background, knowing it would fall away to black because this side of the shrub is in shadow.  (You can dimly see a green tulip stem rising along the left side of the image.)

tulips-5287

Taking a step back, not as close as the previous image, this is more obviously a tulip.  Still working with the dark background, I’ve repositioned myself to achieve back-lighting from the setting sun.

Additionally, I chose to break a couple photography “rules”. Intentionally photographing through a foreground tulip creates a highlight in the bottom left.  It was a gamble that I think paid off quite well.  A viewer will naturally be drawn to the lower highlight and the upper highlight. After bouncing back and forth a few times, you eventually find the beautiful color and texture in between.  I find that my mind dwells on this image longer than the others.

tulips-5299

A combination of backlighting, dark background, and close-up abstract shape.

tulips-5301

Upon thinking “how can I look at this subject with a different perspective?”  I finished up the evening by looking down on the flowers from a steep angle, as the sun was soon to fall behind the buildings of Boston.  I chose a more narrow aperture here, f 16, because I wanted to hold some depth of focus from foreground to background.  And because a smaller aperture means less light entering the camera, I increased the ISO. Aperture priority, f/16, 1/160 sec, ISO 800, 100mm macro lens.

Wildflower Photography

Wildflower Photography

Kevin

Colombine
Colombine

One of the most important aspects of wildflower photography is controlling the background. Finding a clean background, that is not distracting, can be challenging.

Controlling the background can sometimes be easy and sometimes difficult.  Thinking about it just now, here are some considerations just off the top of my head.

  • Inspect around the flower to understand what will appear behind the flower
  • Choose if you want additional flowers in background or foreground
  • Watch out for distracting twigs or blades of grass; you can push them out of the frame
  • If the flowers are on long stems, you may be able to nudge the stem, either to achieve a better background or to place the flower in a more flattering light.
  • To fix a problematic background, consider placing some object behind the flower.
  • Consider placing the camera near the ground and shoot upwards at the flower
  • Consider filling the entire frame with the flower – no background
  • If you can’t achieve a good background, look for a different flower nearby

Canada Mayflower
Canada Mayflower

Canada Mayflower
Canada Mayflower

 

 

One more thing … In your zeal, try not to trample the flowers. Leave them for someone else to enjoy.

Boston Spring Blooming

Kevin

Boston is buzzing with the bright colors of flowers and flowering trees.  Hands down my favorite time of year in Beantown.

Boston Spring Blooming
Boston Spring Blooming

The crown jewel is probably Boston Public Gardens, but there is much more.  The Esplanade along the Charles River is bursting with flowering trees … and B.U. students out enjoying the sunshine. 

In the narrow streets of Beacon Hill, you can find some surprising small displays.  For photography, be aware that the light changes dramatically in these tight spaces  sheltered by tall brownstones.

A long winding stretch of busy roadway known as The Riverway skirts along the edge of the Emerald Necklace.   At the northern end, close to Kenmore Square, are the Kelleher Rose Garding and Fenway Victory Gardens.  (Though, there’s not much to see right now at the Rose Garden; too early for roses.)  Heading south into Jamaica Plain, an hour or two at the Arnold Arboretum is always nice.

My friend Charlie drives a taxi in the city of Boston; he doesn’t much care for the busy heart of the city.  But as I occaisionally make time to walk the streets, I am frequently surprised by gems of natures splendor, whether planted by the city or by residents tending what small patch of ground is available to them.

Book: Wildflowers of RiverPark

Kevin

Although I have mentioned my book project regarding local wildflowers, apparently I neglected to annouce that it was done. 
It is available from Blurb, here: Wildflowers of RiverPark. 

For more information, go to the navigation panel for this blog and click on “Book”.  That will show you all my blog posts about books.

There are a couple of minor errors in the book.  Specifically, my notes regarding the Eastern Redbud tree state that this tree does not produce legume seed pods.  Actually, it does.

Interest in RiverPark is extremely local, people who work at this buisiness park.  However, during one of my evening photo sessions at the park, I did encounter a couple people who walk around the park, but do not work there.

For all the people who are employed at RiverPark
who get out and walk around the park.
(You know who you are.)

Flowers are listed first according to color. Each section of the book has the color marked at the top right corner. (White isn’t clearly marked because the page background is typically white.) If you want to look up a particular flower, you can quickly locate the appropriate color-coded section.

Within any section, pertaining to a color, plants are listed more or less alphabetically by the common name (rather than the scientific name). However, the alphabetic rule is not strictly applied. Two different species having a similar appearance may be shown on the same page.

Total disclosure:  If anybody buys a copy of this book, $20 goes to Blurb (the printer) and $5 goes to me.  The printing fee charged by Blurb is not negotiable (though they do sometimes offer discount coupons).  I tacked on just $5 for myself because I could not imagine anyone paying more than $25 for a small book that is just 7 inches square and 80 pages.   . . .  Checking Blurb just now, it seems their prices have increased by $3, meaning the book is now $27.95.  

Wildflowers in the White Mountains

Kevin

Purple Trillium, Painted Trillium, and Trout Lilly are just a few of the wildflowers in bloom in the White Mountains of NH this weekend. 

Purple Trillium is tricky to photograph because it has a nodding presentation (the flower faces downward).  In the first photo here, I propped up the one flower with a stick (just a couple inches) so that it was not nodding.   I love the soft background in this image; there is a strong sense of location yet without sharp details. (f\10 @ 1/50 sec)

In the second image (with the sun shining through it), the flower was on a slight rise and I shot up at it as I lay flat out on forest floor.  Sometimes you have to get dirty.
(f\7 @ 1/250 sec)

In both cases here I used a reflector to kick a bit of light up into the face of the flower.  This helps the first image simply because the flower is much darker than the background. In general, this is not true in the second image, but it does help specific areas that are dark (for example the center of the flower).

Click on either image to see a larger view.

 

 

Wildflower Book Project

Kevin

Last year, I shared the beginnings of a project with you,  a book documenting the wilflowers that grow at a local buisiness park.  Since I there is not much opportunity to create new wildflower images between November and March, I had planned to begin the book layout in December.  Now February, I am finally piecing together the book layout.

In the past, I have used book layout software provided by the book printer (Mpix, Blurb, PhotoBook America).  This time, I am using Adobe InDesign.  This being the first project of any significant size for which I have used InDesign, I have found that the learning curve was not particularly difficult.  I quite like InDesign.

Pokeweed

Here are a couple images that I am including in the book.

The first is a relatively common weed, but I find it very interesting because it looks like small green peppers.  I really like this image because it shows two slightly different stages and because the background is very soft, not distracting from the foregound subject.

Common Verbena

 
Click on either image for a larger view.
 
 
 
 
The second image is Common Verbena (which is not particularly common in my experience).  The flowers begin at the bottom of the flower spike and progressively bloom toward the top of the flower spike.  I really like this image because of the somewhat unusual background, which I think is not readily obvious.  There is a pool of water, with trees reflecting in it, and a grassy embankment.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Colorado Wildflowers book

Kevin

Here is the new wildflower book (the images are from 2007, but I just created the book this month).   The link below provides a preview of the book.   It is a thin little book with 36 wildflower images.  (Yes, you can purchase copies here via this link.)

This book is PoD (publish on demand) via Blurb.  Specifically, Blurb refers to this 6×9 format as a “trade” book.    The paper thickness is “text” weight rather than the heavier paper typically used for photo books.   Until this year, Blurb offered the trade format only for black&white books, but they now offer color. 

This particular book is 40 pages, meaning 20 double-sided papers.  Why?  Because Blurb pricing is based on 20-page increments.  A book with 22 pages cost the same as 40 pages, but a book with 42 pages would cost a bit more.

 

Different Light

Kevin

In some parts of the world, the weather is known to change quickly and people often say: If you don’t like the weather … wait a few minutes.  With regard to outdoor photography, the same thing can often be said about the quality of the light:  if you don’t like the light … wait a few minutes.

 

Case in point, the attached photos of Purple Fringe.  The first shot was captured in open sun near mid day.  Bright light like this causes not just shadows, but hard-edged shadows (transition from light to shadow is crisp rather than soft).  This is sometimes refered to as hard light.

For the second image, I simply waited for clouds to obscure the sun, resulting in soft light.  This eliminates the harsh shadows, but the image looses overal contrast. 

Keep in mind that light can change quickly and can greatly impact the mood of an image.  The second image here was captured 3 minutes after the first image.

Typically, I prefer soft light or side light.  I prefer the second image.  (Many outdoor photographers will tell you that mid-day hard light is “bad light”.)

However, both images suffer from cluttered background of grasses.  Perhaps I was so enamored with this amazing flower that I did not pay attention to the background.  I don’t recall.  A lower camera angle might have helped eliminate the grasses from the photo, but likely not enough. Perhaps the only recourse here is to walk away from this plant and find a different Purble Fringe with less grass nearby.