Flower Bliss
Most of you probably have noticed that I have been taking and posting many photos of flowers over the last couple of months. I have been doing so since this is the season, and because I was practicing my skills in advance of a flower workshop I signed up for with Kathleen Clemons and Donna Eaton in Portland, Oregon. The workshop was last week and I was in total bliss surrounded by beautiful flowers and learning from Kathleen and Donna about how to enhance my skills.
I experimented with different Lensbaby lenses and macro filters that allowed me to get up close and personal with the flowers. This photo was taken with a Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic that are no longer for sale at Lensbaby. I am considering purchasing one on EBay as I loved the result. It wasn't easy to get this effect, but it was worth it.
I also used my Lensbaby Composer Sweet 50 with a two filters to create this photo. I loved the fact that I could get in so close to the flower - about two inches - to capture the detail.
One of the major takeaways for me was the importance of the point of focus. The petals that are visible in front need to be in focus. The rest of the flower can be blurred, but if the petals pointing toward the camera are not in focus you have lost the shot. I found that I had a number of these "blobs" in my first day's photos, so I really worked on getting focused shots the next day by increasing my f-stop and exposure.
I also learned how to create multiple exposures! If you have that function in your camera check it out. I set the multiple exposure to two and took one of the flower at f8 then took the second one blurred. I made the blurred one by putting the lens of the camera close to another flower so it would capture only the color. My camera merged the two and created a beautiful image.
We spent three of the mornings at the Swan Island Dahlias, another at the Portland International Rose Test Garden, and two of the afternoons we ventured out to Hughes Water Gardens and Luscher Farm to capture images. This one of the water lily was fun to take.
We also put flowers in front of printed textures to get a different effect.
The trip to Luscher Farm seemed like home to me. The farm had many community gardens planted with all kinds of vegetables and flowers, just like my favorite P-Patch in my neighborhood where I take many of my flower shots. While walking through the farm, I found a sunflower to capture.
I came home better equipped with ideas on how to take more creative photos. I learned so much during that three and half day workshop. I look forward to processing my photos (over 1,000) and using what I learned while out Camera Walking. I love to hear from you, so comment below, post on our Facebook page, or send me an email.
