Slideshow:Washington on The Brazos and Independence, TX

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I am finishing up a Wildflower Photography workshop with Laszlo Perlaky at Houston Center for Photography. The workshop started with a class lecture and trip planning. The following weekend we took a field trip to Washington on The Brazos and Independence, Texas. The weather was reasonably cool and it was a breezy overcast day. The class critique is this week and I have begun to narrow down the number of images to bring to class. I also did some reading before and after the class and the field trip and here is a summary of some of the things I learned.

Composition: Photographing wildflowers is similar to taking portraits of people. It also shares compositional techniques used in landscape photography. Follow the general rules for good composition and keep your subject out of the center of the frame. For portraits, pick a great specimen and fill your frame with your subject. When shooting portraits of people, you don’t need a full body shot, use the same principle for wildflower portraits. Compose your image from a low level with the camera at the same plane as the flower. Wildflowers exist in homogeneous and heterogeneous groupings and as individuals and communities. Use these environmental factors in creating your compositions.

As in any portrait or landscape shot, one of the primary concerns with shooting wildflowers is depth of field. In landscape shots you may want all the flowers and the background in focus and so you want to increase your depth of field. When talking a “portrait” of a special or unique flower you can decrease the depth of field to eliminate distracting backgrounds and isolate your subject. Smaller apertures of f/11 thru f/22 will provide an increasing depth of field. Larger apertures such as f/2.8 thru f/5.6 provide a shallower depth of field. Long focal length lens are also good choices for blurring the background while wide angle lens make it easy to bring a fields of flowers into focus.

Wind is also a factor to consider in the field. If you are interested in an artistic blur, then the wind and slower shutter speeds can be your friend. Otherwise, it can be a creative obstacle. Use a windbreak or set your digital camera to servo mode and when the wind dies down, take a burst of images to improve your odds of capturing a sharp image.

Lighting: Lighting for a flower portrait is much like lighting you would use for a portrait of a person. In the field you would use the same techniques you would use in natural light portraiture like reflectors and diffusers and fill flash when needed.  If shooting on a bright sunny day, diffusers can soften the light in the same way you’d use them for outdoor portraits. Similarly you can use reflectors to bounce light into shaded areas for a more even lighting. If you use your flash for fill light, consider using flash compensation of -1/3 or more to avoid having the shot look like it was taken with a flash. The soft even light of overcast days is great for shooting wildflowers. The cloudy sky acts like a diffuser providing a soft even light source.  A light drizzle, misty fog, or morning dew will add small drops of water to the flowers adding and additional great effect. Finally the warm diffused light of early morning or late afternoon  provide side lighting and warm color. Shooting in RAW format will increase your options for lighting corrections in post processing.

Equipment: Many times when you are shooting wildflowers, light levels will be low. For example, you may be shooting in the early morning or evening hours, in the shade of the woods, or you maybe using a small aperture to control depth of field at close distance. Extension tubes and other accessories might limit available light as well. In these cases you’ll need your tripod, beanbags, and other support to to keep your camera still during the relatively slower shutter speeds. Ideally you’ll want a tripod that can adjust to get very close to the ground and one that has a macro arm is even better.

Lenses: Many creative opportunities will call for close-ups that may require dedicated gear for macro or near macro photography. If your budget allows it, true macro lenses are best suited. If you are an infrequent wildflower photographer or if you are on a limited budget, close-up lenses and extension tubes both work to decrease the minimum focusing distance of a given lens. The close-up lens like the Canon 500D is basically a magnifying glass that attaches to the end of the lens like a filter. Avoid the cheaper single element ones that cause chromatic aberrations and distortion. Close up lenses also do not stop down the light the same way as extension tubes.

Finally, have fun. The different seasons provide different kinds and numbers of flowers so there’s almost always opportunities to go out and take great pictures.

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