Tag Archives: flowers

Uncovering the hidden details

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I love roses. It’s not just the colours but also that wonderful bouquet. Unfortunately the latest cameras don’t include the “smell capture” function, so I am unable to get that sensation over to you!

What I can hopefully convey is the dynamic beauty of this rose. It had been raining pretty heavily and of course, like any self-respecting photographer, I was thinking how awesome these flowers would look. After the rain stopped, I hopped outside to take this photo.

I’m always a little torn with processing flowers and landscapes as black and white. I just love colour! I’m always shooting in what is known as RAW; its what you might call the “digital negative”. Basically it is exactly what the camera captured through its sensor. If you use JPEG (the default on most cameras) you are effectively “throwing away” information. That information is hidden in the shadows and even in some of those bright, “blown-out” areas. If you use RAW then your photo-processing software (Lightroom, Aperture etc.) can recover those hidden details. I’ll post in a few days a remarkable photo I took at the Grand Canyon that demonstrates how you can open-up these shadow areas.

Flowers are ideal for RAW as well; there is always those tiny details to be un-covered. It takes patience when processing but the results are worth it. One final thing about RAW – its great for shooting in black and white. The reason is you can immediately see the monochrome image (great for imagining and the creative process) but you still keep the colour. In this case when I imported the photo into Lightroom it appeared as colour (with the black and white profile embedded within it). From here I used Nik Software Silver Efex Pro 2 for the conversion.

One final thing worth mentioning is that I used a Lensbaby lens on my Canon 5D to do the actual capture. Shooting in RAW and using the creative drama that comes with the Lensbaby – what a great combination!

You can see this photo full-sized here.

Black and White Rose

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Remembering the Summer

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You know what it is like when you’re getting towards the end of winter; day after day of gloom with no end in sight. Winter can seem so long. Spring is almost here now and the first flowers are making their tentative appearance. Its almost like they are putting their “toes” into the cold water, testing it before jumping in!

I’m constantly looking for anything that looks vaguely like a flower and so I do find them in the strangest places. That said the best place in the depth of winter is the botanical gardens or anywhere with a decent glasshouse. Failing that I go back over my archives, longingly gazing at flowers I’ve photographed in the past.

Here’s a lovely rose I came across from the end of last simmer. My botanical knowledge is pretty limited I usually refer to flowers by the their colour. In this case I like the yellow looking one!

This photo by the way was captured using the so-called “plastic” 50mm 1.8 lens from Canon. At the price it is a must have if you’re branching away from the kit lens that came with your new camera. Often people think they need a big zoom or longer reach lens but really the standard 50mm is so versatile its hard to beat. I’ve got the Canon 50mm 1.4 semi-permanently attached to my Canon 5D as a great walk-around lens.

Takes pretty good “yellow flower” photos too, it turns-out.

Yellow from the summer

See it full-size here.

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Finding Colour In Winter

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This time of year in the Southern hemisphere it can be pretty hard to find any flowers in bloom. We do have a few winter flowers here but not enough to satisfy a photographer hungry for nature! So, winter is an ideal time to visit indoor locations such as the Begonia House at the Wellington Botanical Gardens. Usually I take my 100mm macro lens on these trips but this time I stuck with the versatile 24-105mm F4. There was enough light in the glasshouse to capture the shot handheld; the macro lens needs a tripod to get a nice sharp photo. In Photoshop there was really nothing to do – just a slight crop and white balance.

Head inside if you’re having trouble finding any colour in nature!

Peace and Beauty

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On the road… off to camp!

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You can’t beat the sweet smell of a rose, can you?  I’ve been watching these lovely orange rose grow as we head towards summer.  If only we could capture the smell of these?  I told me son to smell a rose.   He gave it a little sniff; I told him to give it another go and breathe deeply!

Well, I’m away at school camp this week, taking photos of the fun but not posting much. In the meantime, go and find a rose…

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Creating Art From Photos

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There some great tools out there for converting a photograph into a “painting”; my favourite one is “Snap Art 2” from Alien Skin Software (yes, that is their real name).  They have a new version coming-out soon, by the way.   If you need a repeatable and efficient way to create “photo art”, it’s certainly worth a look.

On this image I didn’t use Snap Art but rather used a more manually intensive approach.  This is to use the Photoshop Art History brush.  I create 3 layers, each with different kinds of brushes and then merge them together.  The Art History brush “reveals” the original image in a random kind of manner.  One of the keys to getting a good result with this is to pick the right kind of photo; something simple works best.  Finally I brought back a little detail using the original image convered with a high-pass filter merged with a Hard Light.

I encourage you to spend some time getting to know the Art History brush!  Have a look at my gallery for more examples of “photo art”.

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