Last Updated on 04/22/2019 by Mark Beckenbach
Flower photography season is afoot with the coming of spring, so here are some useful tips to get you prepared.
Spring season is the perfect time to get those macro lenses dusted off and ready to shoot — what else, but beautiful, dainty flowers! If you already have plans set and a picture-perfect location spot on, we’ve got just the video tutorial to help you with your flower photography. Professional wildlife photographer Paul Miguel has already started making rounds in his local woodland to photograph the dainty wood anemones, so it’s time we all get started with it as well. If you’re trying this out for the first time, with his tips below, you’ll surely pick up some tips and ideas for beautiful flower photography fitting for spring.
One of the most important things to note, as he mentioned, is to shoot when the lighting condition outdoors is soft and diffused. You don’t want to shoot with strong sunlight, as that’s going to blow out all the details of your photos. A bright but overcast day would be great for this. Next, you’ll want to find a nice clump of flowers to shoot, but make sure to check the condition of the flowers so you don’t get wilted ones in you shot. Also, be careful when positioning yourself to shoot them, as you don’t want to accidentally crush them. And yes, you’ll need to get really low if the flowers you’re photographing are as tiny as the “woodland carpet” kind that Miguel was shooting. You can’t really use a tripod in this case.
When you shoot at a low angle like he did here, you can get creative with your composition by isolating one flower (or a few more) through your focus. You can also position the flowers out of focus in the foreground to get an even more dreamy effect. Use a slightly bigger aperture like f4 to get a nice, shallow depth of field in the out of focus areas. Since you’re shooting handheld, you’ll need to shoot with a faster shutter speed. Going aperture-priority will make your shoot easier. It’s also important when photographing white flowers to check your histogram to make sure you don’t blow out the highlights. What you don’t want is for your histogram chart to get all the way to the right-most end. Another fun tip is to look for other natural compositions that could complement or highlight the flowers you’re photographing. A great example is the mix of colors and textures from a fallen branch that Miguel found next to a patch of flowers.
Check out and subscribe to Paul Miguel’s YouTube channel for more of his nature photography tips and tricks.
Screenshot image from the video by Paul Miguel