Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth - It's So Often In The Detail - Macro Flower Photography

Four Simple Photography Tips On Macro Flower Photography - Photographing Spring Flowers As Art With Your Phone Camera or Camera

• Get closer than feels normal. Then get closer again.

• Breathe out as you press the shutter. It steadies you more than you’d think.

• Pick one tiny thing to focus on – anther, edge, dew, texture

• Let the light do the work. Backlight can turn petals and dew into magic.

"Spring is sprung, the grass is ris, I wonder where them birdies is" An old ditty, very old, 1940's maybe.

Out walking the dog this morning, spring is clearly on it's way, the birdies are calling, robins, tits, and blackbirds, along with at least three different corvids croaking away.

I spotted the first celandine of the year, and the snowdrops are getting very business-like.

But the grass isn't growing so far as I can see.

What I want to suggest today is that with whatever kit you have, phone-camera, or proper camera, you have a go at getting in really close and photographing with a narrow depth of field.

This broadly comes under the title of Macro Flower Photography, mixed with art.

The results can be amazingly beautiful and artistic. Indeed the closer you can get, the more amazing.

I was a geologist in a previous career, and remember drilling through the chalk in part of Dorset. It is quite unusual to be able to look at samples of that section of strata - for a number of reasons - but on this accasion we could. The beauty and structure of this section of the rock left me breathless. Diatoms massed in their millions.

But back to capturing the details of flowers, let's look at a few examples to inspire you to have a go.

Image One - daffodil stamen and anthers

Image One is very obviously a daffodil, betrayed as it were by the yellow frill. Very often whole flowers suffer when they include other background stuff, which can be very distracting. Here I've got in quite close so that the main focus is the anthers and particularly the stamen.

Image Two - daffodil stamen and anthers

Moving on to Image Two, again macro-photograph of the stamen and anthers. I've changed the angle of image with the result that these two parts are separated from the yellow flower by the green that occurs deep within.

Although the anthers are slightly out of focus, their placing on the top horizontal 'third' makes them very much the visual focus, with the stamen, completely in focus, sitting on almost dead centre.

Personally I've always loved this image and had I the space would print as an almost poster-sized image.

Image Three - Snowdrop against blue sky

The snowdrop images were taken at the wonderful Margery Fish gardens and East Lambrook Manor https://eastlambrook.com, A place so wonderful at this time of year, as is https://www.cotswoldfarmgardens.org.uk

(https://ngs.org.uk › gardens › cotswold-farm-gl7)

Image Three is not as macro as the other images here, but is fairly unusual compared with most you will se, and the sun shining from behind making the dewdrops glisten adds a piquancy that is lovely.

Image Four - beyond focus, image of snowdrop

Now Image Four is a real enigma.But an example of slowing down and 'looking until you see'. The scene was the East Lambrook Garden, but the café, where we had chomped and slurped with great satisfaction. The tables were decorated with snowdrops, and I couldn't resist having a go at making art, rather than in focus photography.

Impressionist Photography with an iphone!. For more info and discourse around the influence of photography on The Impressionists have a look at https://www.rehahnphotographer.com/impressionist-photography-origins/