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Home > TME Community > Share Your Work > Landscape, Nature > Flower Strategies
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Flower Strategies
Started June 17, 2012 @ 12:18pm by RickT
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RickT
Posts: 1,870 |
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| Flower Strategies | June 17, 2012 @ 12:18pm | I find I've been drifting away from the purpose of this community, which is to improve each others' work. I've been posting too much and garnering too little useful input. So today I'm tossing out a few examples of recent wildflower shots in search of input.
In my area we rarely have conditions that produce carpets of wildflowers. At most we get scattered clumps of flowers (when they aren't growing absolutely solo). In a effort to make things look more prolific, I have been shooting extremely close with a wide-angle lens. This puts the closest flower in focus with the few others in the clump trailing off behind, giving the impression of a large field of flowers. My questions are: Does this actually work the way I think? Do you have a method that you feel works better? You can post your own image here or a link to it if it helps illustrate your point.
Examples:
Blanket Flowers
Sulfur Flowers
Harebells
Sand Lilies
RickT
Boulder, Colorado
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwteichler/
PPY |
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Last Edit: June 18, 2012 @ 2:48pm by RickT | |
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Chance
Posts: 175 |
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| June 17, 2012 @ 1:05pm | Nice shots Rick. For me, I think your directed efforts do contribute to a sense of more flowers than might be there in reality. But I also feel it leads to a less-than-expansive view, or a very closed-off feel.
The first three shots have progressively less depth. I think the first works well, giving the illusion of a field full of flowers, but by the third, I'm feeling claustrophobic. Perhaps if you were able to get even lower (I know, you're already on the ground!), and angle more upwards to include a piece of sky, you might be able to achieve more of a sense of great expanse. You did this nicely in the fourth shot, and I find that one the most comfortable and balanced space, even though it shows fewer flowers.
I enjoy your first shot, and for me it achieves your intent. The fourth works for me as well - even though I see only one grouping of flowers, I can easily imagine the entire plain full of them.
Well done for being direct in your request for specific input! I'm sure others will oblige. Thanks for sharing your work and your questions. There is much to learn from each other, and I enjoy seeing and questioning through other people's perspectives.
Hope this helps.
Thanks,
Chance
"If you aren't struggling a little bit each day, you're not learning anything!" -CDGF |
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RickT
Posts: 1,870 |
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| June 18, 2012 @ 2:48pm | Chance, thanks for your thoughtful comments. I like your choice of the word "claustrophobic". The harebells, especially, do have a pinched-in feeling, now that you've brought it to my attention.
The sand lilies with the mountains in the background, though, bring up a problem with including sky: the wide range in brightness. That particular image was originally shot with the idea of HDR. I didn't like the look that Photomatix gave it, so I ended up simply layering 2 shots in Photoshop, along with some masking and other brightness tweaks to get something close to what I saw. Because of those hassles, I usually deliberately try to exclude sky from this type of shot.
With your comments in mind, I will see what opportunities I get to open up the shots a bit more while still maintaining the fiction of great numbers.
RickT
Boulder, Colorado
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwteichler/
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Wes
Posts: 8,976 |
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| June 18, 2012 @ 4:50pm | Some great strategies, Rick and some really nice examples of what you are doing when taking these images. Shooting low and through the groups of flowers is a great way to accentuate the foreground subjects and separating it from the background.
Wes |
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April
Posts: 2,581 |
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| June 19, 2012 @ 7:27pm |
Quote (RickT)
In my area we rarely have conditions that produce carpets of wildflowers. At most we get scattered clumps of flowers (when they aren't growing absolutely solo). In a effort to make things look more prolific... |
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Lovely images, all. I especially enjoy the Sand Lilies arching into/welcoming the distant sunrise.
And I really like your post asking this Community for strategies to address the problem! It makes me think about what I might do, and I'm looking forward to the input of others.
My contribution is to question the approach: Why strive to make things look "more prolific" and like somewhere else? Yours is a uniquely beautiful area. Those "clumps" and "solo" wildflowers are such gifts in the landscape -- at least, that's how I feel when visiting! Maybe that's also why "Sand Lilies" appeals to me so much: it captures my experience there.
Perhaps try close with the wide angle lens as you are doing, but with isolated subjects that echo their surroundings?
Just some initial thoughts. Thank you for posting this!
April (PPY)
Photos on Flickr
Just the other day (a photoblog)
"Seeing something you never saw before, that was always there but you were blind to it."—AG |
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RickT
Posts: 1,870 |
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| June 28, 2012 @ 11:19am | Thanks for the comments, April. I've really admired your flower portraits, so I especially welcome your input. As to "Why strive to make things look "more prolific" and like somewhere else?": in my mind it's to avoid the "duck on the water syndrome", where you take a shot of an object in a large environment that you think is quite good. Then you get home and find that duck is just a dark speck in a vast field of ripply blue. It's a real problem with most of my local wildflowers--even the largest of those sand lilies was only 1 1/2 inches wide, and the camera was resting on the ground for the shots.
Also, I'm probably trying to imitate the look of the real thing--an actual field of flowers. On rare occasions (like yesterday!) I get to experience the real deal.
RickT
Boulder, Colorado
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwteichler/
PPY |
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Usha
Posts: 1,545 |
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Flo
Posts: 17,472 |
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| June 28, 2012 @ 1:55pm | Rick, in that first batch, I do not think that you attained your goal with the first 3, sorry. The first one sort of, but not really, at least not for me.
I love the sand lily image, even tho it doesn't look like there is an abundance of them. But that's OK - you're shooting them as they really appeared, isolated bunches and not a whole field of them.
Now your last image, of course, does look like what's really there - a whole field of flowers.
I think what may not be working in the first three is that you didn't get low down enough to include part of a mountain or the sky. The first one almost makes it, but altho there is a background, it's too far out of focus to help me think it's a whole field of flowers. If the background were in focus as much as with the last image, then it would have worked better to fool us into thinking it's a whole field.
Just my 2 cents' worth, which sure can't buy much these days.
Flo - PPY
"May we live in peace without weeping. May our joy outline the lives we touch without ceasing. And may our love fill the world, angel wings beating." aziza
http://photos.tonebytone.com |
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Wes
Posts: 8,976 |
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| June 28, 2012 @ 3:13pm | I know the feelings uou re talking about, Rick. You have accomplished many of your visions I think.
Wes |
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RickT
Posts: 1,870 |
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| June 28, 2012 @ 11:04pm | Thanks, Usha and Wes. Now the problem is taking suggestions and trying to remember them in the field. I get excited over a particular scene and frequently discipline goes out the window.
Quote (Flo)
Just my 2 cents' worth, which sure can't buy much these days. |
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Oh, I don't know, Flo. If you could scrape up another penny you could buy yourself a Kurt Weill opera. Thanks for your comments, though, even if you did undervalue them. I'll try for backgrounds when I can find them. It's situational. Like http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwteichler/7460835082/in/photostream
RickT
Boulder, Colorado
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwteichler/
PPY |
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April
Posts: 2,581 |
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| June 29, 2012 @ 8:29pm | This last one is (also) beautiful, Rick! So lively, and Usha's phrase a "flower vista" is perfect.
I do wonder about correcting the wide angle distortion somewhat, though I rather like the way it pulls focus into the distance. And/or cropping inside that stray upright stem in the right side of the frame?
In any event, a lovely image conveying the "actual experience of a field of flowers."
April (PPY)
Photos on Flickr
Just the other day (a photoblog)
"Seeing something you never saw before, that was always there but you were blind to it."—AG |
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Chuck
Posts: 286 |
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| July 4, 2012 @ 12:02am | Rick,
My favorite is #4 as the foreground is sharp and seems to compliment the out of focus background. #2 is my second pick. If the very closest flower petals were sharper, it would look better to my eye. With a near far photo, I seem to attracted to sharp foregrounds and can easily tolerate the focus trailing off. Perhaps moving to the right a little bit would have created more of a diagonal as well.
Anyway, #4 really resonates with me because of the odd number of flowers, how the flowers seem to be the star of the picture, are in tack sharp focus and how the focus trail off to the mountains.
Thanks for sharing,
Chuck |
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Rich K
Posts: 273 |
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| July 4, 2012 @ 1:21pm | Rick,
As seems to be the general consensus, I find the sand lilies to be the most attractive image though it is the farthest from your stated goal of "carpets of wildflowers."
As for strategies, I think that one thing I would suggest is to move your centre of focus a little deeper into the image. In all cases you are sharp at the bottom/front and then sharpness falls away. I think you would gain more depth by having a bit of out of focus colour in the near foreground that leads in to the main subject further up the frame.
In particular, the harebells feel like a wall right in front of the lens that blocks any movement deeper into the image. If you could find a way to shoot through an opening in a nearer clump so that you had a soft focus frame and then a way to move through and beyond the main clump to some colour behind that you would get a more expansive feel.
Another thing that might help would be to use a longer lens. According to the exif you are using a 17-35. If you have something longer it would compress and make scattered clumps appear to be closer together.
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killersnowman
Posts: 174 |
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| July 4, 2012 @ 11:11pm | i am a HUGE fan of "sand lilies". great image! my only concern is with the bokeh on the mountain in the background. but with a wide angle lens what more can you ask for?
my favorite lens to use when shooting "macro" is my 35/1.4. i try to do the same thing and bring more context into the image but have it blurred out. its really not macro but it is flower photography and a nicely blurred wide expanse of a background is very pleasing behind a nice sharp flower.
this was one i did with the 35/1.4 @2.2
you might think these flowers go on forever..... but it was just one bush
and yes... the 17-35 used at 17mm is far too wide to achieve your goals. you want to go for a wide to normal lens (i like 35) to make some context. and a nice fast aperture is always good
www.tsbphoto.com
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Last Edit: July 4, 2012 @ 11:12pm by killersnowman | |
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Wes
Posts: 8,976 |
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| July 5, 2012 @ 11:24am | Tyler, you pulled off the effect of vastness very nicely in your image. I can also appreciate the black and white treatment.
Wes |
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Flo
Posts: 17,472 |
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| July 5, 2012 @ 4:39pm | Tyler, I like the image you posted and I think it gives more of a feeling of "more flowers" - but funny, I'd never have thought of shooting a field of flowers this way. So thanks for the new - to me - idea.
Flo - PPY
"May we live in peace without weeping. May our joy outline the lives we touch without ceasing. And may our love fill the world, angel wings beating." aziza
http://photos.tonebytone.com |
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RickT
Posts: 1,870 |
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| July 6, 2012 @ 9:32am | Wow! So many good and useful contributions! I'm learning quite a bit, including the possibility that my "vision" is flawed. There seems to be a consensus that the sand lily shot is a fave, where less (flowers) is more. Rich K and Tyler, your suggestions are something I'll be trying soon (if this drought that we're in leaves me any flowers to work with  ).
Thanks, everyone, for looking and commenting. It's what makes TME so useful and educational.
RickT
Boulder, Colorado
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwteichler/
PPY |
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