Capture plant portraits
Unveil the beauty of botanicals by capturing the best perspectives
You’d think it would be easy to capture attractive images of plants and flowers.
When compared to the other subjects a photographer may encounter throughout their career, the assumption is that a stationary flower poses little difficulty. However, the colourful nature of flowers means that accurate reproduction is critical, especially under mixed lighting conditions such as you’ll encounter in the field. Composition is also often unexpectedly complex, as finding the best focal length, angle and shooting position is complicated by a constricted working environment.
Lens choice plays an important part in the styling of a shot and needs to be carefully considered before a selection is made.
Although there is freedom to try out multiple approaches when shooting flowers – unlike when you’re shooting skittish subjects such as insects – this can actually place more pressure on your creativity. Choose a wider macro optic such as a 35mm to enable close focusing but introduce a stretched perspective, separating the subject from background elements. Conversely, a telephoto macro, such as a 150mm or 200mm model, will compress elements and make each zone of the frame seem closer together spatially. If you use a longer lens, pay extra attention to the colours in the background, as these areas will ‘bleed’ across more of the image area and impact significantly on the overall chromatic balance of the shot.