The Art Of Flower And Garden Photography

A guide to photographing flowers and gardens, offering guidance on selective focus, use of color, light, composition, equipment, and other aspects of plant photography, and including an introduction to the digital darkroom.

A master photographer shares his wisdom on the special challenges and possibilities flowers offer.

Make great photos of flowers, gardens, landscapes and the beautiful world around us

Gardens are everywhere, all around us. In this long-awaited guide to garden photography, noted botanical photographer and author Harold Davis tackles the subject of garden photography with an expansive brush. In this book, you’ll find techniques for photographing extreme macro subjects while becoming a better landscape photographer. From tiny flowers to vast landscapes, your photography can be enhanced using the techniques you will discover in Creative Garden Photography.

What is a garden? The topic of garden photography encompasses a huge range of photographic styles and techniques that can be applied to almost any kind of photography. Learn to use this toolset from one of the acknowledged modern masters of photography.

• Explore gardens, types of gardens, and how best to photograph them

• Create stunning floral macros and high-key imagery

• Learn techniques for adding impressionism to your photos

• Use light and creative exposures to enhance your imagery

• Master close-up focusing, depth-of-field, and focus stacking

• Create your own custom field studio “in a bucket”

• Complete exposure data and the story behind every photo

“My goal as a photography teacher and writer about photography is to inspire and to help you become the best and most creative photographer and image-maker that you can be.”
—Harold Davis

“Harold Davis’s etherial floral arrangements have a purity and translucence that borders on the spiritual.”
—Popular Photo Magazine

“Davis is a pioneer and a new art form—part photographer, part digital illusionist.”
—Rangefinder Magazine

“Harold Davis’s Creative Photography series is a great way to start a photography library.”
—PhotoFidelity

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

ENTERING THE GARDEN
Understanding Gardens
Garden Styles and Purposes
Different Kinds of Garden Photography
Garden Purpose and Design Informs Photography

OF LIGHT AND GARDEN
Sunrise, Sunset, Blue Hours, Golden Hour

ON LOCATION: THE ROMANTIC GARDEN, SCHWETZINGEN AT SUNRISE, GERMANY

ON THE IPHONE: SNAPSEED

USING A TRIPOD
Using a Tripod for More Creative Options
Tripods for Garden Photography: Materials, Legs, Types of Heads
Tripod Tips and Tricks

BLENDING EXPOSURES TO EXTEND RANGE

BLACK AND WHITE IN THE GARDEN
Photographing the Zen Garden

ON LOCATION: IMPERIAL GARDENS OF OLD NARA, JAPAN

CONVERTING TO BLACK AND WHITE

IMPRESSIONISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY
Camera in Motion
Subject in Motion with Camera Stationary
Creative Exposures
In-Camera Multiple Exposures
Post-Production

ON LOCATION: PHOTOGRAPHING MONET'S GIVERNY, FRANCE

ON THE IPHONE: WATERLOGUE

FOCUSING ON REPETITION
Compositions with Repeating Garden Elements and Patterned Spaces
Best Practices in Focus
Depth of Field

ON LOCATION: THE PARC DE SCEAUX, FRANCE

FOCUS STACKING

DRAGONFLIES, BEES, AND WASPS
Stopping Motion
Getting Close
Dealing with Those that Sting
Auxiliary Lighting: Reflectors, Macro Strobes, LED Lighting

WATER DROPS AND SPIDER WEBS
Refractions in Close-Up Photography
Spider-Web Studio

MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY GEAR

GARDENS OF THE MIND

PRINTING GARDEN PHOTOS

NOTES & RESOURCES
Off-Beat Garden Photography Tools
Places to Practice Garden Photography
Recommended iPhone Apps for Garden Photography
iPhone Workflow
ImageBlender

NOTES AND RESOURCES
GLOSSARY
INDEX

Capture stunning macro floral images with this gorgeous guide by acclaimed photographer Harold Davis. You'll learn about different types of flowers, macro equipment basics, and the intricacies of shooting different floral varieties in the field and in the studio. Harold also shows you techniques in the Photoshop darkroom that can be applied to flower photography to help you get the most out of your images. Beautiful and authoritative, this guide to photographing flowers is a must-read for every photographer interested in flower photography. Photographing Flowers will also win a place in the hearts of those who simply love striking floral imagery.

Get garden-tested guidance for beautiful blooms with this comprehensive, practical, and gorgeously illustrated study of the art of growing flowers. In Mastering the Art of Flower Gardening, author Matt Mattus offers expert tips on growing both annuals and biennials (including native and heirloom species) based on his decades of first-hand experience in his own garden and greenhouse, made popular on his blog Growing with Plants. Accompanied by lush photography, every variety or species presented includes detailed information and tips that go beyond the very basic information typically available on the seed packet or a nursery tag. You’ll discover: Basic growing methods, including how to start seeds, soil, sowing, hardening off, transplanting, and growing on. Advice for growing a wide range of different flowers, organized by blooming season, including annuals from seed, summer bulbs, vines such as wisteria, and even blooming shrubs like lilacs. In-depth profiles for a selection of flowers that include more-detailed growing techniques along with their histories and varieties. Pro tips, including how to grow challenging annual poppies and biennials from seed and forcing flowers for winter blooms. Just a small selection of the flowers covered: heirloom and exhibition chrysanthemums, larkspurs and annual poppies, delphiniums, peonies, lilacs, and wisteria. Bulbs include spring and summer bulbs such as anemone, ranunculus, tulips, lilies, gladiolus, and cut flower dahlias, while winter indoor bulbs cover every aspect of forcing bulbs indoors like narcissus, amaryllis, South African bulbs—and even how to force Lily of the Valley. Whether you’re interested in raising a small cut-flower garden, enhancing your flower border or containers, or just admiring the beauty of flowers, Mattus has it covered.

Learning the art of composition. Making the most of garden features. Capturing the spirit of a garden. Photographing close-ups and vistas. Exploring the magic of light and colour. Choosing and using cameras and accessories. -- Cover, page [4]

From Versailles to the home vegetable garden, from worlds imagined by artists to food production recorded by journalists, The Photographer in the Garden traces the garden's rich history in photography and delights readers with spectacular photographs. An informative essay from curator Jamie M. Allen and commentaries by Sarah Anne McNear broaden our understanding of photography and explore our unique relationship with nature through the garden. This is a sublime book bringing together some of history's most stunning photography.

This book is for all who have wanted to capture the beauty of flowers in photographs, but felt they lacked the experience to succeed. With 215 vivid color photos of a wide range of flowers, professional photographer Lucian Niemeyer takes readers through the steps necessary to create artful color photographs, including the right choices of setting, lighting, color palette, and equipment, photographic techniques, and documentation and storage of the resulting images. He shows how flowers from the United States, Brazil, Africa, Bali, the Caribbean, Europe, and Canada were photographed in widely varied settings, under morning and evening skies. He shows various tones and moods that may be achieved when proper photographic techniques are applied.