Spring is a gorgeous season to go out and make new beautiful photos. It’s all about colors and lots of daylight. What could be better for a photographer than digging into flower photography and green grass that can be captured through the lens?
In this article, we have collected the best tips for flower photography that will come in handy for both a newbie and a Pro.
After reading this guide, you’ll get some new spring photography ideas; get a better grip on what angle to choose, and what techniques to keep in mind before clicking the shutter.
Tips for Improving Your Flower Photography
1. Get Prepared
First things first, you need to get all your gear together, choose a proper lens, and other equipment that you may need out in the fields. Flowers are a great subject to try macro photography. If you have a macro lens, it will be a great option.
If you don’t have a macro lens, don’t worry, any lens from 50mm to 200mm will work.
After the lens and cameras, you will also need a tripod. This piece of equipment will improve your work by leaps and bounds. Of course, it’s not very comfortable to carry a tripod around, but your flower photography is worth it.
2 Find the Focal Point
For any photography genre, you need to draw the eyes of the viewer on your subject. You don’t need to set it in the centre, but somewhere closer to the frame. Use the rule of thirds to place your flower (or your subject) on the ‘lines’.
I want to remind you about the rule of thirds ; it proposes that the image should be divided into nine equal parts by two horizontal and two vertical lines. This way, the essential elements of your photo should be placed on these lines or their intersections.
For example, when you shoot a field of flowers, the skyline should be set on a lower or upper horizontal line, just like on the image below.
3. Highlight Your Subject
Flowers that are the subject of your shot should be your focus. Make sure you removed everything that could distract the clear view of the item from the foreground and background. There are numerous ways to get rid of distractions, such as:
- crop the photo;
- move the distractions or yourself;
- make the depth of field more narrow (wider aperture will decrease the depth of field);
- move the subject (but it’s not a very good method, because in this case, you need to pick the flowers and take it elsewhere).
4. Live View is Your Best Friend when Photographing Flowers
Live view is in flower photography and allows you to compose the picture and where to position critical element. However, you can use the live view mode only with a tripod. Otherwise, your image will turn out blurry.
Adjust the camera position if necessary, achieve the composition you want, and then go to the manual mode and click the shutter. This technique is useful for your macro and close-up images.
5. Go Big
Sometimes you can get a better image when you look at the big picture. Most photographers shoot flowers on macro and lose the opportunity to get a fantastic landscape shot. Maybe you can focus not on a single flower, but a whole field.
You can get so attentive to the details that you forget to take a step back and see the whole picture. After you make a few close-up shots, take a wide-angle lens and see the full scene.
6. Don’t Forget About Lighting.
Usually, you shoot flowers outside where perfect daylight does the entire job for you. You don’t need any specific lighting equipment, however, outside conditions could be unpredictable, and you might need a reflector or a diffuser. They can give you natural, diffused light on the areas of your photo that are in the shadow.
The beauty of the flowers can be captured with backlight. Stand right in front of the sun and let the light illuminate the bulb from the back. It allows creating a stunning glowing effect for a flower.
7. Make Abstract Image
Contrasting colours and textures of nature can help you to take a few stunning abstract shots. Don’t be afraid to experiment with this photography genre.
The beauty of the flowers can be captured with backlight. Stand right in front of the sun and let the light illuminate the bulb from the back. It allows creating a stunning glowing effect for a flower.
8. Make Abstract Image
Contrasting colours and textures of nature can help you to take a few stunning abstract shots. Don’t be afraid to experiment with this photography genre.
