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The majority of flower shots I take are in backyard gardens and mostly in my wife’s garden. Each week something new appears and presents another subject to explore. The flower in this example was a potted plant on our porch. Since it was portable, I moved it. Since I was supposed to be cooking dinner on the patio grill I decided to grab my camera and enjoy the late afternoon sun. I had to work fast – I had about 20 minutes before it was time to eat.
The desired result from moving the plant was the following:
1. Find a simple background. The immediate view from our porch was a little distracting and I wanted a simple composure
2. Create pleasing out of focus bokeh
3. Selective simple subject – there were many flowers in the pot and by moving the pot I was able to isolate one
4. Control the ambient light. The aim was a backlit image using the late afternoon sun
The first few exposures after placing the plant were pleasing. I had placed the flower pot far enough away from the green background (flower leaves in the garden) to get a decent bokeh. I was also pleased that the flower was diagonal and filled the frame. I felt the side and back sunlight was working. The camera was on a tripod and since I liked the composition at this point, I was free to layer in new components in a deliberate and incremental fashion. A quick check on the grill confirmed that there was a good 15 minutes of cooking time left.
Impressed with my ability to improve natures’ light by moving the plant, I decided to add some light elements to the darker portions of the flower. The late afternoon sun was positioned in the upper right corner of the photo. I felt the lower left portion of the flower could use some splash.
We had some laundry drying in the yard and I borrowed two fleece coats (one black and one pink) that were on the rack.
The black coat went over my head and back of the camera/bellows. This allowed me to compose and review the work in the low afternoon sunlight. Composing and focusing into a late afternoon sun made it a little difficult to view and review the image without the improvised hood.
The pink coat was placed a foot away from the flower. I thought pink was bright enough to add some fill in light and would also balance with the purple in the flower. The coat was just out of the image on the lower left corner. I used a bucket from the shed to place and hold the pink coat. I suppose the clothing drying rack or a chair would have done the job as well. The bucket was easier to fetch and I made a calculated guess my wife was less emotionally attached to it.
There were still a few minutes before I needed to tend to the grill, and just enough time to add a final element. A hand held diffused flash was placed in the lower right portion of the photo in an attempt to better expose the green stem.
Throughout these steps I used my hand and contorted my body to block some of the direct sun in the upper right portion of the photo. A rather interesting pose of me and I find this type of photography lends itself to the private confines of a backyard. No need to draw extra attention from my neighbors; my hand push reel mower handles that task quite nicely.
The photo/experiment was done when it was time to take the food off of the grill. My attention turned towards straightening up and explaining to my wife why I had a black coat over my head and that it was okay to move her carefully placed porch plant. Somehow I got a pass on using my daughter’s pink coat to aid with the light.
If I were to try it again, I am tempted to add a gel over the flash, perhaps a green gel to bring out the stem color. I probably would have experimented with shielding the sun a little more, either with some transparent tissue paper or bubble wrap or even something non transparent, such as a newspaper or magazine.
The photo was exposed at F16 for 1.5 seconds. It was made with a Canon XSI mounted on a M42 Pentax AutoBellows. I used a Fujinon 135 EP enlarging lens and something in the 100mm range would have also worked. Magnification (controlled by length of the bellows) was set to the point where the flower filled the frame. I used a Nikon SB28 DX flash in manual mode and synced with an inexpensive eBay wireless slave.
The camera, bellows and lens were mounted on a tripod. The tripod takes time to setup, but it speeds up the process when layering in components. With a tripod, once I got composure and focus in place I move on to the other elements. With a tripod, I am able to set it and forget it. It freed up my hands to control the flash placement and shade the flower from the sun. It also allowed for ambient light to be the primary source at a 1.5 second exposure.
At a certain point there is no right or wrong exposure and by working in steps and reviewing the work I was able to add elements to this photo. It also provided some insight in working with light and provided a 20 minute diversion before dinner.
You can read much more about off camera flash and controlling light at www.strobist.blogspot.com. There is also a corresponding home on flickr for this blog. http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/ is the address and if you search the strobist flickr group pool for “macro” you will see examples of how light can work with macro.
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