Umesh Bhatt

Every year, this time (Spring) – Most nature photographers flock over to gardens, parks and such – with an interest in capturing flowers. As any self respecting photographer, I have been doing this the past several years as well.

Now that the season is back, here are a few tips from my past experiences:

• You can either capture the flowers to document the seasonal change (technical) or to express the emotion of spring (art) – techniques to do either/both of these are entirely different. The documentary style is quite easy – just set your aperture to the smallest possible for the largest DOF, and just shoot a lot of pictures all around you.
• A few techniques to capture the emotion of spring is to do one of the following:
  • Get closer to the flower – the closer the better. Get a macro or use a close-up lens, or even use with an extention (try it on your wide & tele lens).
  • Background, Background, Background! Its all in the background. Subject isolation is the key – what are you trying to direct the viewer to? You can get this in a few ways – Use a wide aperture (the bigger the better), shift the angle of the lens so that you get a good creamy complimentary colored background – You can even use your color jacket if none exists (Just take your jacket and spread it behind the flowers just enough so as to make that your new colored background. I have a florescent green rain jacket just for this).
  • Get low on the ground  (lay on the ground) or use a mini tripod or even the kirk’s lowpod.
  • Plan to get a soft focus effect – Use a soft focus filter, soft lens or a lens baby.
  • Use the Orton technique
  • Try a HDR image
  • Try a Color Infrared Image
  • Try a B&W Image

Or, try something you have never thought of – I recently, gave my 5 year old a P&S camera and watched as he shot. It was fascinating learning to see all over again from him.

f you find other ideas – let me know!