Trillium – Kevin Davis Photography

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.

Here is a very different type of image from Katahdin / Baxter State Park.

Both painted trillium and purple trillium are common in the northeast forests and both have a very small window of time during which they bloom, maybe three weeks. Purple trillium are more difficult to photograph because the flowers have a nodding presentation (the flowers droop over and face the ground).

What always catches my eye is groups of these flowers. Typically they are solitary plants, so a cluster of them is a nice find. For this shot, I used a wide-angle zoom lens with an extension tube. Without the extension tube, focusing distance is perhaps 14 inches. With the extension tube, I can get much closer to the flower, reducing the distance about 50%.

Canon 5D mk II, ISO 400, f/14, 1/6 sec (on a tripod of course)

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