Flower Photography – A Colorful Way to Remember your Travels – Part 1

With Spring about to break across the Northern Hemisphere, I was reminded that flowers have been a big part of a lot of my travels.  Flower photography is another & colorful way to record your travels.  I traveled to the Netherlands during tulip season and

New Mexico & Tennessee for spring wildflowers.   I am always looking for flowers to photograph where ever I go as they are one of my favorite subjects.

You can photograph gardens or  entire fields.

You can get a bit abstract with large colorful fields of flowers as well.  This was accomplished by moving the camera laterally with a slow shutter speed!

 

Or have some fun and turn the camera while you take multiple shots!  I used one flower as my focal & center point.

Individual flowers are a great subject but don’t just shoot down on them from a standing position.  To get a different perspective you have to get down with the flowers!   I have actually laid down on the ground to shoot up under a flower that was just 12 inches tall!

Try using a shallow depth of field (a small f stop number, f2.8 to f5.6) to make your background blurry & colorful.   If you are shooting with a DSLR camera, the best lens for these shots is the 100 or 105 mm macro lens.   These lenses were made for this type photography!

Don’t forget to get really close and get images of parts of flowers.  This is the macro or really close-up part of flower photography.

Groups of flowers also make great images.  These were bouquets that were on display.

There are many botanical gardens that have seasonal plantings.  These are a great place to visit while you are traveling.  They give some insight to the flora of the area and also they usually have collections of plants that they are propagating for conservation and preservation!

 

Flower photography can be done wherever you are.  There are flowers in the most exotic places to the field or ditch down the street.   With a little time & effort you can make beautiful images you will want to display on your walls!   And, as for me, every one of these images reminds me of the place where I saw them and takes me right back there!

More to come on some post-processing tips!

For more Flower images, please  take a look at these galleries:  Flowers, Longwood Gardens, Sonnenberg Gardens and Holland.

That is all for now!

Lynn