Recently I blogged about a few photography tips to help convert flower photos into digital scrapbooking supplies: Read that blog here!
But what if you don’t want to convert you flower pics into digital supplies and would prefer to just take flower pics, well… just because? Well, today’s blog is all about “just because.” Try these four photography tips below to take great “anytime” pics of pretty flowers- whether you use them in your digital scrapbooking pages- or not!
Tip 1: Take photos in early morning or evening when the sun doesn’t wash out the flower colors or create harsh shadows.
Sometimes the harsh sun rays can make the colors look less vibrant.
Use the early hours when the sun is coming up or the later mid to evening hours. I took this image at 6:15 am in August! The sun was up, but I live in San Diego and the marine fog hadn’t cleared yet. So it really made for ideal flower photo-taking conditions!
Tip 2: Cloudy days (or even foggy days, or after a rain) are also nice times for taking flower photos (and for the same reason morning and evening shots are better). Another nice thing about taking a flower photo after it rains (beside better lighting) is the rain drops give a pretty effect on flower petals.
Again, I live in San Diego, so we don’t get many cloudy/rainy days! That said, I have to cheat a bit to get a “freshly-rained” look: I have learned that taking my flower photos after the sprinklers have turned off in the morning is a great way for me to capture that “just rained” effect on flowers! Also, you can use a misting or spray bottle!
This is a handy tip to know when your weather doesn’t call for rain, or you don’t have control of the sprinkler settings- like at the park or other places you want to photograph a beautiful flower with rain drops!
Tip 3: Make the flower stand out by blurring the background with your zoom lens. If you have a digital SLR Camera that has great zoom lens, you can easily blur the background and make the flower be the star of the picture!
If you don’t have one of these lens or you didn’t take the picture this way, then you can always blur the background in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements after the fact, but it saves a lot of time to just do it when you are shooting the photo!
Tip 4: Watch out for distracting backgrounds. Even if the flower is interesting, a backgrounds that is too busy drowns out any pretty flower face! Yes, you can try to edit the photo later in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, but still, when you start out with a good photo, you can do even more to improve a great photo in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements later!
Take a look at the example below. No matter how great I think this flower is, this busy background is taking away any beauty in this flower!
The sky, fence, trees, other plants… all of it is distracting and compromises the beauty of the flower!
So what do you do? Look at the flower from another angle! Just changing your view can often times fix the problem!
Below is the very same flower just photographed from a different angle!
This flower was rather tall for me so to get this different angle I used a small ladder. But shooting into the flower at this angle gave me a better background that highlighted the flower and make it stand out more. Also, focusing in on the flower made less background that could be distracting! I also blurred slightly with my lens focus… all giving me a better photo of the same flower!!!
If you have found a lovely flower that you want to photograph, look around and take note of the background. Take a few photos and check them; see if the background is going to ruin the photo or if it helps it. If it doesn’t help, then move around and see if you can get the shot you want by changing your angle!
Well that does it for today! I hope that gives you a few more ideas to taking lovely photos of flowers!
Enjoy, Cheri
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