Do you like flowers? Would you like to take photos of gardens or photos of natural environments?
Flowers are among the most beautiful beings of nature, especially flowers that bloom beauty. Plant leaves and trees have a harmonic feel that are great for being used as backgrounds for flower photography.
Nature offers us a wide amount of flowers that inspire us to take many pictures. We can find beautiful green areas almost everywhere, even if you don’t have a garden at home. Also, if gardening is your hobby, taking photos of your garden can become something entertaining and fun.
You can use your creativity to take beautiful pictures of flowers! With the right angle, your photos will look very beautiful!
In this post you will discover how to take amazing pictures of flowers, be it in your garden or outdoors!
Let’s get started.
First and foremost: focus on the details
Taking photos of flowers can be something really fun! You can be photographing the flowers of your home garden or you can be photographing a flower that you find somewhere outdoors. Either way, it’s really important to focus your camera on the details of the flowers to get beautiful photos. Remember to be patient to capture good shots.
Use your camera zoom to help you magnify the flower details you find interesting, just remember to don’t zoom in too much to avoid losing image quality. You can focus on the flower petals and on the flower leaves to take pictures.
With a Professional Camera and a specialized macro lens you can (50mm to 200mm), you can photograph scenes with even more details. Macro lenses show details that are impossible to be seen by human eyes.
With that type of lens, you will be able to take much better photos of flower buds and flower petals. You can also take a photo of a drop of water in a leaf, for example.
To make macro photos, you need to have a Tripod so that the pictures don’t get blurry or shaky.
Also, searching for details to capture in a photo requires concentration, and without a Tripod that is difficult and your photos don’t get a fair richness of details.
Include leaves and foliage on your photo compositions
Foliage is a cluster of plant leaves or tree leaves, it usually covers the ground of public parks and similar places, you can find it under trees or spaces with many flowers side by side. You can always use any foliage nearby as a background for photographing flowers.
Depending on the season of the year, your photos can achieve different levels of contrasts. Each season has its own color palette (a specific set of colors).
The color palette of spring is made of shades of yellows, pinks, greens and blues, the color palette of summer is mainly shades of green, blue and yellow, the color palette of autumn is mainly red, brown and gray and the color palette of winter is mainly shades of blue, white and gray.
You can use that to take different types of photos in each season. Also, remember that differ flowers blossom each season of the year, which are other possibilities for taking beautiful photos.
Don’t forget to also focus on the foliage texture and capture the effect of the sunlight shining through the leaves. Prefer to shoot at the beginning or at the end of the day because those are the moments with better natural lighting and it’s also when the sunlight has a soft golden glow.
Tips for taking photos of flowers located outdoors
When you’re taking pictures of flowers in parks, green areas or gardens, use the environment as a photo background. Some interesting elements you can focus on to take photos are tree trunks, the ribs of a leaf, flower petals, flower blossoms and foliage.
You may be taking a walk in an open space in which you find many similar flowers, so use the blur effect to make a beautiful background with an emphasis on just one flower. To do that, you need to approach the flower as much as you can with your Camera to blur the background.
It’s good to wake up early to shoot pictures of flowers lighted by the early morning sunlight. Avoid photographing in moments of the day when the sunlight is too intense, that’s why the morning or the late afternoon are better. On the other hand, any moment of a cloudy day is good for photographing flowers. It’s better to photograph flowers during the day when they’re fully opened.
If you have a home garden you can water the flowers before taking photos to create a nice effect. If you’re taking photos of flowers and plants in the same photo scene, put the plants more in the corners of the photo scene and the flowers in the center. Also, be careful not to let insects in the photos (unless you actually want them to appear in the final shot).
Avoid taking photos of flowers from angles with the sun as a backlight (when the sunlight is behind the flower) because that can result in photos that are too dark.
If you’re photographing large flowers, focus only on the flower details and choose the angle that will result in the most natural and beautiful background. It’s interesting to lean your camera in a way that captures a view of the horizon.
You can also point your Camera at the sun and keep the flowers included in the photo scene because sun rays can add a special touch to your photos.
How to take photos of flowers to put in decorative frames
You can photograph flowers to put in frames as decorative elements for home decor and other places. The flowers that you will photograph to put in frames must be large, they should be placed in a vase with a narrow mouth, you can also use a bottle.
To leave the flower stem fixed and straight, wrap a paper towel in the part of the stem that is exactly in the mouth of the bottle or vase you are using.
If you want to include the vase in the final shot, don’t let any paper appear, you may have to work on the camera angle for that.
Use natural lighting. Place the vase with the flower next to a large light source, a window or a door.
Position your flower about a meter and a half from the entrance of light to achieve various color contrasts, this will give you the condition of a darker background with emphasis on the flower.
The angle for this style of photo is very important, you should not take photos from a top angle, keep the camera on the same level as the flower.
You can walk around the flower and keep taking some test photos until you find the perfect angle.
How to set up a camera for taking decorative photos of flowers
Now you will get tips on how to use a Professional Camera the best way possible when photography flowers for decorative frames:
- Put your camera in manual mode.
- Put your camera in the live view mode for better photo previews.
- Start taking photos with ISO 100, then test different values (up to ISO 320). Before increasing the ISO, you will notice that the background will be very dark, after you increase it the flower will be very clear.
- You can try to increase the ISO to get brighter photos, try different ISO values and see what you get.
- Set the lens aperture to f/4.
- Set the shutter speed to 60 sec.
- Move away from the flower and use the camera zoom to achieve a shallower depth of field.
- Create an artificial background by putting something black or white behind the flower, such as a canvas or cloth.
- The lighting for outdoor photos changes according to the weather, so use exposure composition in your camera to capture better outdoor images.
- When you’re in a low light environment, you should increase the camera exposure compensation to make images brighter.
- When shooting in a well-lighted environment, you should decrease the camera exposure compensation to make images darker.
- To make your photo more natural, create a natural dew effect on your flower with a water spray.
- When you’re finished taking photos, you can enhance them in a photo editing software.
If you use your smartphone’s camera you can search on the Internet for tutorials on how to set up a smartphone to the settings above because there are different ways to do that based on the phone brand and model.
Conclusion
Great! Now you know how to take photos of flowers focusing on the details, how to include leaves and foliage on your photo compositions, you also know tips for taking photos of flowers located outdoors and how to take photos of flowers to put in decorative frames.
You can also share your thoughts in the comments below!
