Five simple photography tips - following my own advice - Photography inspiration while out for a walk
It really is a case of looking around you
Focus when doing close-up is critical
If using a camera, adjust your aperture for the best depth of field
Beware, as ever, of the background
Use macro on your phone, if you have it, but also other options
Eight weeks after an operation to replace my hip, I zigzagged slowly down our steep driveway and took our 'bear' (she's actually a dog, but we call her bear!) for her short morning walk.
Two months of not doing this walk has seen winter drear turn to the excitement of early spring. So much has changed in those weeks and so have I. Now I can share with you what I would call
I’ve had mentor time with a very wise middle aged (he is eighty three) gentleman, throughout my time convalescing, talking through about how to make this blog something that may make a significant contribution to you or someone you know.
One of the 'sound bites' from him is was: “It’s all about observation. When you go for a walk, ask yourself what is there waiting to be photographed?”
As I walked down the road the first thing I saw, with my 'seeing' hat on, was how the primroses are coming to the fore. A couple of weeks ago, they were just starting, mostly the older, more established, and to my mind, less attractive to photograph.
Image Two - Primrose Plant with flower and buds
Now it’s the younger ones, where a carefully chosen 'whole plant' is beautiful to photograph, and with maybe a handful of flowers in varying stages of opening. Have you noticed, that, as with so many flowers, it’s the opening bud that often carries so much beauty.
If, like me while I’m recovering, you struggle to get down low, one simple tip to look for is ‘primroses buttoned into banks’ as described, I’m told, by Joyce Grenfell. In the part of the country where I’m blessed to live, we have a number of roads that have quite high banks and the primroses and the celandines grow on them in profusion.
Obviously, if you live in a town, this isn’t necessarily going to be the same, but perhaps there are situations where you can photograph flowers in raised beds, or on bushes. There’s usually something to be found if you look for it.
One tip that works well with primroses is to look for a nicely shaped plant and keep an eye on it photograph it as it develops.
An artistic tip: for some strange reason, known only to God, three looks better than two in a lot of visual situations. See if you can catch three flowers out and maybe see what I mean.
Back to my stroll with the mutt. After a few days of sunshine, it’s almost as if the ground is visibly quaking as little plants seem to spring up. On my walk I saw a profusion of plants, many coming into flower.
Here are a few examples of what to look for at this time of year,
Image four illustrates the advantage of waiting and watching.
Over the last couple of weeks, I've observed, with much joy, as these amazing gaudy flowers, intially scattered in singles and pairs, have become groups that are so much more worth photographing as a group than they were the week before last.
A sub - tip here, it's really important in terms of composition that the flower in the foreground is in focus.
Image five and six show what, perhaps strangely, are one of my favourite plants. I think it's because they come and go in almost unnoticed profusion. The whole plant is essentially green, which probably appeals because of green flowers' relative rarity amongst the UK flora.
It came as quite a surprise as I tried to apply my own principles of looking, and eventually seeing. How much more I actually saw on the way back! And of course, things change as the sun moves round.
Images Seven and Eight illustrate how it's not only living plants that are worth your attention, these dead seed heads offer a multitude of photo oportunities.
You need a really still morning for the likes of Image Nine, and keep an eye out for bees, they are desperate for a food source at this time of year.
A simple tip on the way down the road. If you look at the images of the dandelion, you can see that I was trying to use the intersecting thirds rule for putting the flower in a place of visual balance.
Unable to get down on the ground I was using the trick of holding the phone upside down. The first image as you can see, has the road and a house in the background - definitely not what I wanted.
The way round this was to just move down the bank a little, and turn the lens a smidgin, so that the background is much more natural.
Another example of looking, and eventually seeing is spotting the little beastie crossing the road. If I hadn't been looking, casually scanning, I wouldn't have seen it. It's an oil beetle if you want to know, and some of the species are very rare, indeed some now extinct in the UK.
Initially I photographed it with my i-phone 12 Pro, set on x2 telephoto, Then in the other shot I wanted to highlight the hazards they face, one of which is a car tyre, so used the ultrawide setting.
All in all if you're out with the dog, or some other scenario. Perhaps the baby, in the pram, has fallen asleep, put the brake on and get into focusing on some nearby flowers - or even a wild beastie!
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