How to Improve Your Flower Photos

Time of Day, Tripod, Reflector, Aperture Priority Key

© Pat Kelly

Sep 22, 2009

Here are 10 ways to improve your flower photography:

1. Get there early. Best light is first light and you only have three minutes before those sweet specular highlights start to burn out. Direct overhead sunlight is as bad for your pixels or your film as it is for your skin. Plus, there’s seldom much wind on the early side.
2. Actually use that tripod. Because setting it up slows you down, you’ll pay more attention to the scene before you, to little things like where the light’s coming from, which blossoms are tired, what backgrounds are distracting. Mostly importantly, a steady tripod will let you shoot long time exposures to ensure maximum depth of field, whether you are shooting film or digital.
3. Start from a low angle with a wide angle lens. You’ll be amazed at how dramatic those blooms look isolated against the sky. Using a wide angle will force you to get closer than normal and help you to see the flowers in a new way. Use at least a 28mm lens on a full-frame SLR, a 20mm on a small frame. Most importantly, shooting from the ground is uncomfortable and you’ll quickly be moving to other, perhaps more interesting angles.
4. Look for the picture in the scene. You’re not there to take a picture, you’re there to make a statement. Look for that combination of line, shape, and color that jumps up and says wow, this is something special. Roses, irises, dahlias, and Gerbera daisies are particularly good subjects for this kind of shooting.
5. Separate, simplify, and say something with your shot. Usually this means moving to a short telephoto, something in the range of 70-200mm on a single lens reflex camera. Set your camera on aperture priority. Use large apertures ( f2.8 to f5.6) to blur the foreground and background, small apertures (f8 to f22) to keep everything in focus.
6. Get closer. Move the tripod, change the lens, or zoom in. Do this in combination with shallow depth of field settings to emphasize what’s appealing to your eye and eliminate what is not.
7. Get behind the scene. Shoot the backs of flowers for a fresh look that emphasizes pattern and texture. Shoot directly into the light to create silhouettes and dramatic flare.
8. Use a reflector. If important petals are in shade, bounce light into them. If the light’s too harsh, use a translucent reflector to shade and soften the scene. Direct sunlight washes out color. Shade saturates color.
9. Use black velvet. If there’s an annoying picket fence growing out of the top of that iris, drape it with a swatch of black velvet. Just make sure it’s about a foot behind the flowers so it goes out of focus in your picture. You can pick up a swatch at a fabric store for a few bucks. Stow it in your bag. You’ll use it all the time.
10. Get there late. Wait for the golden hour of sweet slight an hour before sunset and hope there’s no wind. Look for rim light on the edges of petals and expose for the shadows or bounce light back into the scene.

Take Charge of the Scene

Your flower photos will begin to demand attention once you understand you are there to create, not just to record. Using a tripod is the first sign of that commitment. With a tripod to slow you down and steady your camera, you are free to use the full creative power of your equipment and your eye. You are free to play with the light, play with your lenses, and explore that dramatic angle that no one but you found. Take charge and have fun.

Get Behind the Daisy to emphasize pattern .

Use light and shadow to define Bird of Paradise

Use black velvet to make iris pop.

Use low angle to isolate sunflower.

Use wide aperture to set off Bluebonnet.

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