Photo Flower

[Jude Hargrave]

Flowers are popular subjects for macro photographers, especially when the photographer is new and just learning about color and shape, light and shadow. I was no different when I was a beginner. As an avid gardener, my first passion gave rise to my second: flower photography. I wanted to document the flowers in my garden, which, at the time, included eighty varieties of roses and twenty different varieties of clematis, among others.

photo flower

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Choosing the right kind of flowers and arranging them properly is very important when photographing flowers to highlight their translucency. Look for flowers with petals that allow light to shine through in order to make the most of the backlight. In my experience, the best kinds of flowers for this are calla lilies, tulips, daffodils, peonies, magnolias, poppies, irises, dogwood, cherry blossoms, hydrangeas, and alstroemeria, among others.

Flower photography composition is one of the most important elements of any genre of photography. In photo light box photography, there are different approaches one can adapt. An eastern flower arrangement style, such as Ikebana, focuses on simplicity and emphasizes lines and form. A western-style, however, shows an abundant use of flowers as a mass. My style lies somewhere in between these two. I tend to use as many flowers as possible, but I pay attention to the spacing between the subjects.

Give some thought to what kind of arrangements please you. Start with a rough sketch on a piece of paper. For me, arranging flowers becomes spiritual and meditative. I found that it becomes an internal, non-technical process. Express yourself in various arrangements using the same bunch of flowers. What is your vision? How will you build your images?

Select your flowers for the shoot and keep them in water until the last possible minute or use florist water tubes to keep them hydrated. Once you start arranging them on your light box, you must move quickly, otherwise they start wilting.

With your flowers arranged on or in front of the light box, shoot your first series of bracketed images (3 or 5). The first one should be +2 stop overexposed, the second at +1, the third at +3 stops. These settings are not written in stone. Use them as a baseline and tweak them as you see fit.

Open all of the bracketed images in Photoshop as layers. Starting with the lightest frame on the bottom and the darkest frame on top, select all the layers and auto-align them. Using layer masks, bring in the details of the flowers from the rest of the layers.

Now that you know the flower photography secrets of creating jaw-dropping artistic fine art photos, all you have to do is give it a go. Feel free to share you own tips and techniques in the comments below.

Padma Inguva is a flower photographer who first picked up a camera to capture the fruits of her labor in her New Jersey garden. Her curiosity and perfectionism have driven her to spend thousands of hours in shooting and processing floral portraits and she loves sharing her gained insights with others. Her Meetups, webinars, workshops, and mentoring sessions cover topics like equipment selection, composition, lighting, and post processing. Her hope is that through photography, others can learn to see the beauty in little things and create for themselves an oasis in this constantly demanding life.

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This was a very informative post on using light to illuminate flowers. Thank you for providing the necessary equipment, set up and camera settings. The images are awesome and I will be following to see future posts. ThNk you.

I've established in previous posts how much I love using photos to decorate my house (Turning Photos Into Art and A Family Photo Timeline). Photos make any decorating project more personal, sentimental, and unique. It's also inexpensive to decorate with photos.

So, when my friend Sandy asked me if I would make 6 table centerpieces for her sister's 6oth birthday party, I immediately thought that this was a perfect occasion to incorporate photos into the party decor. I asked Sandy if she had some photos of Shelley throughout her 60 years that I could use in the centerpieces. Sandy, who loves photos every bit as much as I do, got them to me at lightening speed. (It's always fun to work on a project with Sandy--she knows how to GET IT DONE!)

Step 1. Arrange the flowers. I bought 5 different kinds of flowers--fall colors for a November birthday. Got them at Sam's for a total of $25. I bought 6 small, clear glass vases at the Dollar Store for, well, a buck a piece = $6. I made 6 identical flower arrangements and tied a bow around the vase. They looked like this:

Step 2: Make a birthday sign for the centerpieces. I created this "Shelley's 60th" card in Microsoft Publisher. It can be done in Word, too, or any number of software options that are most likely already on your computer. I scanned and included a baby and current photo of Shelley, and some downloadable balloon clipart. The colors of the border, title, and balloons were made to coordinate with the fall colors of the flowers.

Step 3: Scan a variety of photos through the years. Some of these were color photos, but I converted them all to black and white (used Picasa's free editing software). Color photos get lost when mixed in with the colorful flowers. Making all of the photos black and white makes them stand out more and gives the centerpiece a more unified appearance. Sandy provided photos that included many of the people who would be at the party. That makes the centerpieces more meaningful and fun for Shelley and the party guests. After scanning the photos, converting them all to black and white, and resizing them, I gave them all a matching orange border. The border adds a little color that coordinates with the fall flowers. I thought too many border colors would be too busy.

Step 7. Insert the floral picks into each bouquet. I put the "Shelley's 60th" birthday card at an angle (so you don't have to worry about keeping it straight) at the top of the arrangement. There are 2 of these birthday cards on each bouquet--back to back on the same pick so they're visible from both sides. Each bouquet had 5 photos, scattered so there were photos to view from each side of the bouquet. That way guests seated all around the table could see a photo.

I mixed up the photos so that no 2 arrangements were exactly alike. A couple of photos were used more than once, but every arrangement had mostly different photos. That way guests can walk around to view the photos on each table--great for getting conversation going between guests at different tables.

Since aperture is the most important camera setting for flower photography, most photographers shoot flowers in aperture priority mode. This way, you can quickly adjust the aperture to find the perfect depth of field without worrying about ISO or shutter speed.

Discover more great photo tips for photographers of all skill levels. Explore what more you can do with Photoshop and Lightroom to grow your flower-photography skills in colorful new ways.

Flower Power is the title of a photograph taken by American photographer Bernie Boston for the now-defunct newspaper The Washington Evening Star. Taken on October 21, 1967, during the March on the Pentagon by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the photo shows protester George Harris placing a carnation into the barrel of an M14 rifle held by a soldier of the 503rd Military Police Battalion (Airborne).

The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam's March on the Pentagon took place on October 21, 1967. When the antiwar demonstrators approached The Pentagon, they were confronted by a squad of soldiers from the 503rd Military Police Battalion (Airborne).[1] The soldiers pointed their rifles, marched into the crowd and formed a semicircle around the demonstrators to prevent them from climbing the Pentagon steps. Bernie Boston, newspaper photographer for The Washington Evening Star (shortened to The Washington Star in later years), had been assigned by his editor to cover the demonstration.[2] Boston was sitting on a wall at the Mall Entrance which allowed him to see the events unfold.[3] In a 2005 interview he said, "When I saw the sea of demonstrators, I knew something had to happen. I saw the troops march down into the sea of people and I was ready for it."[4] A young man emerged from the crowd of demonstrators and started placing carnations into the barrels of their rifles.[3] Boston captured the moment in what would become an iconic image and his signature photograph.[3]

When Boston showed the photograph to his editor at the Star, "the editor didn't see the importance" and the picture was run on a page deep inside the newspaper.[3] It did not gain recognition until after Boston entered it into photography competitions, which it won.[3]

The young man in the photo is most commonly identified as George Edgerly Harris III, an 18-year-old actor from New York who had moved to San Francisco in 1967.[1][5] In 2005, Brown talked in an interview about the effort it took to learn that the protester was Harris.[4] Harris, who performed under the stage name Hibiscus and co-founded The Cockettes, a "flamboyant, psychedelic gay-themed drag troupe", died in the early 1980s during the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.[1]

Paul Krassner, in a 2008 blogger's article written for the Huffington Post a week after Bernie Boston died, said the young man in the photo was Joel Tornabene, a fellow counter-culture leader of the Youth International Party (the Yippies) who lived in Berkeley, California in the 1960s.[6] Tornabene, like Harris and Boston, died before Krassner posted this statement.[6]

The Flower power movement began in Berkeley, California as a means of symbolic protest against the Vietnam War. Beat Generation writer Allen Ginsberg, in his November 1965 essay How to Make a March/Spectacle, promoted the use of "masses of flowers" to hand to policemen, press, politicians and spectators to fight violence with peace.

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