One Subject, One Focus
Sony a6000; Lensbaby Sol 45 with extension tubes; manual focus.
“The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.” Therese of Lisieux
After taking a hiatus from photo shoots to learn and get comfortable with a new camera and lenses, I decided to take a new approach to my flower photography. My process has always been to find an interesting flower against a relatively good background and shoot it with a variety of lenses; wide, telephoto, macro, Lensbaby. My thinking is, a beautiful flower speaks for itself. Not too much thought or creativity goes into this process. Consequently, many of my flower photographs look like many of the photographs taken by everybody else.
For Easter someone brought me a Lily plant. Given spring is still fleeting here in Chicagoland (might snow this weekend), I decided to place the plant on a patio table and see what I could come up with creatively. Not too many ways to shoot a single lily. I kept focusing on what is the most interesting thing about this lily. This is what I came up with.
The photograph taken above was not cropped. The subject was shot as is. So this year, I’ve decided to challenge myself to step out of my comfort zone and photograph only a portion of every flower I shoot. I believe it is going to be “easier said than done”! But if nothing else, I am hoping to learn a lot, and it will definitely be interesting!!
The photo below was taken a few years ago.
All of my photo processing is done using a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop Elements. I also use the NIK Collection which is a plugin that can be used in both programs.
f/9; 1/15; ISO-100; 135mm; +0.3 steps
f/8; 1/6; ISO-400; 60mm
f/4.5; 1/80; ISO 400; 60mm
Comments are always welcome.
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched… they must be felt with the heart” Helen Keller
f/8; 1/100; ISO 100
“You use a mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul”, George Bernard Shaw.
The Chicago Botanic Gardens offered an abstract photography class. I didn’t take the class because I am particularly fond of abstract photography, I enrolled because I had heard that the class material challenged students to look at the subject matter from a different perspective and creatively shoot.
The photograph above of two placed daisies was shot on a piece of mylar film.
f/7.1; 1/80; ISO 800.
Comments are always welcome.
“Dandelions are just friendly little weeds who only want to be loved like flowers.” – Heather Babcock
