Photography > Trees, Plants and Flowers

How to take photos of plants with "hard to capture" coloured flowers

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ideasguy:
Are they photos of Chionodoxa lucillae?

I suspect (if its anything like my tests) that the one top left is the nearest to true colour????
I have to settle for a "dark" photo and doctor it a little in a photo editor.

Bottom right is nice and bright, but the light has bounced back from the flowers (?) and they dont clear and focused.
My 2d worth!

NightHawk:
I came across this posting today when I saw a Forum 'Guest' viewing it, so I clicked the link to check it out.

I was somewhat dismayed to find that it hadn't generated much interest, so I feel that we need to revive the topic.

I've found an interesting article on the Internet which discusses this area of photography, and I think it's well worth a read.

The web site is Ron Bigelow Photography - "How to Photograph Flowers", which is in 3 parts.

Quite fascinating, and I think may be very useful to help some of our members who aren't happy with the colours they are capturing.

As we're now into a new year, and as the weather gets better and our flowers start to bloom nicely, we could start photographing again and share them on the Forum.  It will be a good learning experience, comparing results of similar flowers taken by various members, and giving details of the weather conditions the photos were taken under, camera equipment used, etc., and see where the differences lie.

This could also be a dual-purpose exercise, for the photos posted could end up in George's gardening database, for us all to benefit from  ;)

ideasguy:
Thanks for reviving this topic Laurie and thanks for posting that useful link.
They say the camera doesnt lie, but it can sure have a real good go at it when it comes to reproducing the colours of flowers. Its all down to the skills of the user of course, continually learning how to use the wonderful equipment available nowadays. Reviving this thread will help if we continue with more examples and tips.

Yes, with that Master Database now bulging with over 36,000 plants, I sure could do with more photos ;)
http://www.ideasgenie.co.uk/masterdatabase.html

bossgard:
I believe this posting will fit into this topic?

In the January/February 2012 issue of the ‘Horticulture’ magazine is a full page announcement of its 2012 garden photo contest. There are five categories for entering photos, and the current winners are pictured here and on other pages in the magazine.

The magazine has this to say about:

“JUDGING
Renowned photographer Rob Cardillo, will select the winners. Rob has been photographing gardens, plants, and the people that tend them for nearly 20 years. Rob is a frequent contributor to ‘Horticulture’, his work can also be found in magazines, websites, catalogs, and in his latest book with Adrian Higgins, ‘Chanticleer: A Pleasure Garden (University of Pennsylvania Press). Visit his award-winning website at robcardillo,com.”

As an interesting aside, the winning photo in the ‘Wildlife, Animals & Insects in the Garden’ category shows a small frog (toad) that has perched itself on a rose colored bud that is ready to burst forth. On this particular picture the frog is on the left side of the bud. Further into the magazine where the photos are again reproduced, the frog is on the right side of the bud. Interesting?

If you go here: http://www.hortmag.com/gardens-and-gardeners/2011-garden-photo-contest-winners
you will see the winning photos, including the photo with the frog.

Mr. Cardillo’s website is here: http://www.robcardillo.com/
Perhaps, the website might help in gathering ‘how to’s’ in garden photography for our Forum Members. In his ‘portfolios’ he has slide shows available on the right hand side of the screen, don’t miss them. His ‘Chanticleer’ book is shown in the ‘In Print’ portfolio.

- Toby in the US

NightHawk:
Great links there Toby, and thanks for posting them here for us.

They will indeed prove useful, and we invite other members to share any similar web sites to give as diverse a selection of photo tutorials, hints and tips, etc., as possible.

That bit you mentioned about the frog changing sides on the flower Toby, magazine editors do this little trick a lot.  Usually its to fit in with the layout of the page the photo appears on, so it looks better as the text wraps around it.

This happened to me many, many years ago.  As a freelance photographer I'd photographed my 3 months old nephew and sent the photo to a magazine called Nursery World.  He was laid on his stomach propped up on his right elbow with his left arm extended forward.  He was wearing just a nappy and a beach hat set at a jaunty angle on his head.  I'd got down to floor level too so we were looking eye-to-eye.  It was a black-and-white photo and I submitted the negative to them and got a princely sum of £10 for it.

It appeared on the front cover of their magazine, but they had reversed the negative to fit in with the mag. name and some of its contents.  So he was now leaning on his left elbow and his right arm extended.  It was only obvious to me though, the pose itself had nothing in it to scream it was in reverse.  If there'd been any writing on his hat then they couldn't have done that, but they obviously had the final layout in mind anyway before accepting my particular shot.

It's amazing what you can do with photographs  ;)

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