Cliche flower shots - How to improve them.

There are two things we all like to shoot (Correct me if I am wrong) :) ... Lots of flowers and the moon (for some reason). As for the flowers, its a natural instinct as we get easily drawn into their amazing colors which is a result of generations of evolution. The flowers which has the most vibrant and most preferred colors (by bees etc) succeeds in making more copies. Now enough with biology :) and lets get into shooting them. All below shots were taken by me at different stages of my photography learning curve... and thought would help to solidify the guidelines. Please note that ALL PICS ARE COPYRIGHTED and CANNOT be used without my consent.

Also note that the critique below is my personal view only..and does not claim a global standard.

Here we go.. This is what I would have shot sometime back...

The above shot does have some vibrant colors to it (minimal PP done on this)... But lacks significance in my opinion. It doesn't provide the user with a unique view or a story. Lighting is completely flat and mainly due to the overcast weather at the time, but no consideration was paid to the lighting of the shot.

Now the one below is a little different and in my opinion, a much better shot.

Now, the above picture do contain some vibrant colors in it. But it also puts one flower in particular as the focal point of the picture. Putting it right in the middle might not be appealing.. but nonetheless it catches the eye. This is achieved by thinking about the lighting and the angle of attack of the shot. This is what we call as a back-lite (also a little side light) subject and that light helps to outline the contours of the object much better.  So, even though there s a lot going in the picture (a lot of flowers in it), the eye of the viewer is guided to the desired focal point.

Now the one below has even better impact in my opinion,

This is shot in very harsh sunlight but the positioning of the flower and its petals helps to minimize the effects of that light. Plus, the shadow it cast improves the dynamic range of the picture. I hold this picture above the other two posted here due to one main reason. Its the DETAILS in the shot. This is a "not so beautiful" flower by the side of the road... and yet this provides the user with a view of its unique structure evolved for pollination... and that adds value.

So there you go.. the next time you see a flower, don't snap a picture of it.. But think about  the following things,

1. What do I want to show about this flower?
2. What kind of lighting do I have right now and how to use it?
3. Where are the important details of the flower that makes it unique?

If you answer one or many of these points, I believe you ll have a stronger picture than many other vacationers would have sitting in their computers/cameras. Please add below if I have missed anything or if this was helpful to you.

Thank you!
Akila.

SlutWalk London Ontario 2013

Coming from my ethnic background, I was inherently shy at talking to people I don't know. So, street photography was beyond my forte... But always wanted to try it out. Then along came the annual Slutwalk which presented me an opportunity to speak with the organizers and their approval to be there as a photographer for the event. This is what caught my eye during the proceedings of this vivid walk which gathered people of all walks of life to protest against rape and also a comment made about how women should/should not dress to avoid getting raped.

 EXIF data - f/3.5 - f/5.0, at 1/400 - 1/250 sec with 100 ISO. A mix of partial and spot metering.

Please note that All Images are Copyrighted. 

Comments are always highly welcomed.

Rolling with style...

No shame.... 

Passion to express....

Serious in harsh sunlight....

Full attention... 

Showing his/her support...

Emotional speech....

Colorful event.....

 

Careful listeners.....

Digital age is here...

Only one paying attention?

Need I say more?

Making a statement....

Looking for equality... 

Fun...reflection and a walk...

No age limit to express yourself....

Thank you.
Akila.

Child's play... exploring colors with bubbles.

I was blowing soap bubbles to distract my one year old son during one of his feeding sessions, when I saw the amazing colors (refracted) on the surface of them... This gave me an idea which I thought had some merit to it. So this turned out to be a 2 night adventure.. The first night was to explore the idea, get the lighting just right etc...  This was a tedious process but yielded some results with a lot of potential. The main problem was (apart from the watery mess it makes) the difficulty in getting something in focus and of course, the hit and miss nature of timing of these shots.

To get everything in focus and to improve my chances I moved away from my macro lens for a telephoto lens. The lighting was a simple single source light set up which effectively created a light trap for me to capture the bubbles. All shots were made with the same EXIF data basically at f/16 at 1/100 sec with an ISO 400.

ALL IMAGES ARE COPYRIGHTED.

Please feel free to comment and will be highly valued.

Thank you!
Akila.

Arts and Craft show continued.

Below are few more pictures I was holding back since I was waiting for them to get back to me regarding posting them online. I saw these amazing miniature (not longer than 2cm in length) babies on flower baskets and really urged me to shoot it. I stuck with my 100mm for the whole day and in fact didn't take any other lenses with me...just to force myself to focus on shooting and not lens changing.

Of course, you don't wanna miss out a closeup of it (though it brings up some imperfections in the product)

Then I saw this beauty

 

They also had these amazing scented candles which I really wanted to EAT.. 

 

All pictures are copyrighted.

As always, your comments are highly welcomed.

Akila.

Story behind a picture...

Was going through my image collection and stumbled onto this one, which I remember specifically taking the shot. This was shot in Sri Lanka, where I saw this guy sitting on top of our wall... Quickly grabbed my camera and put on a telephoto lens (didn't have a macro back then) and ran towards it. Then almost as it had realized my approach, this guy posed nicely...keeping an eye on me of course. The setting sun gave a golden color in the background and I framed the shot so that a banana leaf on the background will take most of the shot.. Then this was fired with f/5.6 at 1/250 sec and ISO 400.  Very minor PP was done on this and the green nice background is from the bokeh effect introduced from that banana leaf. Please feel free to comment your thoughts below.

All pics on this blog are copyrighted. 

Akila.

Among arts and craft....

I took some time off to go visit an annual event in London Ontario where various artists gather to showcase their products and services. I carried only a macro lens to the event on my Canon rebel body, sort of to limit causes for changing lenses so often.... a choice which proved to be a great one.. The event was so crowded and all the stalls were covered with people, juggling with lenses would have been the last thing I wanna do. The set up created some challenges.

1. Sellers and artists were interested to showcase but were skeptical about photographing them due to the risk of someone steeling their ideas. I had to clearly state my intentions many times.

2. The lighting was not that good and also highly uneven. Due to the crowd, I could not use a tripod (to not to get in the way of others). So, that meant, a fixed wide aperture to not to increase the chances of getting a sharp shot. This also meant there s a very shallow depth of field.

3. My lens at hand meant (at an effective focal distance of 160mm = 100mm*1.6) meant I should better stick with macros... So went hunting for small objects only.

*** But the most important skill I developed was not photography related at all.. It was the way to discuss with people and build a good rapport with people.. so it was all people skills.

Below are some of the shots. Will provide more as (if) I receive permission from other vendors,
All images are copyrighted. 

The following two pictures are from two pendents which were made out using multiple layers of glass.. fascinating.. But I would have loved to play with lighting in these ones to bring out some drama.

Thanks
Akila.