Wrangling Flowers

It's Spring—time to stop and photograph the roses!

Flowers can't run away and, for the most part, they don't mind being photographed. Does that mean it is easy to photograph them? Maybe not. A lot of my students come to me with the same question: "How can I get those beauties to stand still for a portrait? "

Here is the scene: You walk out into your garden and decide you are going to move in for an extreme close up to show the intricacies of a Lily, the sculptural oddness of a Pitcher Plant, or the otherworldly landscape contained in the surface of an Allium. You snap on your macro lens and look deep into the center of the flower that now looks large enough to be the surface of a recently discovered planet.

Then you notice that the only thing in focus is the tip of one stamen. Sometimes that is just fine because the only thing you want to show is that stamen - you want the rest of the flower to become a soft cloud of color. But maybe you want more of the flower in focus. In that case you will have get more depth of field, which means closing down the aperture. (See our Depth of Field Actual Info and TipsFlick.)

Lets say your starting exposure is 1/250 of a second at f8. Normally f8 would give you all the depth-of-field you need to shoot a scene or a portrait and keep most of it in focus. But it doesn't seem to be working to bring more of the flower into focus.

Close down to f11 and increase your shutter speed to 1/125 of a second. Now check to see how much you have in focus. If you are using a single lens reflex camera, you can use the depth-of-field preview button to see what the camera sees - but it gets pretty dark in the viewfinder when you get to these high f-stops.

Still not enough in focus? Keep going. Close down to f16 and increase the shutter speed to 1/60 of a second. At f22 you will need to shoot at 1/30th. On some macro lenses you will be able close down to f32 or f45. Remember that for each stop you close the aperture, you have to double the amount of time the shutter stays open to keep the same brightness level in your image. If you close down to f32, you will need to be shooting at 1/15 of a second. Here is a comparison of the same flower shot at f8 and at f40.

Here is a close up of a tulip in our garden shot at 1/250 of a second at f8.

And here it is again shot at 1/10 of a second at f40. A lot more stuff in focus!

At these slower shutter speeds, you will need a tripod to keep your camera steady and the slightest movement in the flower will cause it to blur. Even on a day when the air is very still, flowers seem to jiggle about, making it maddeningly difficult to get a sharp image.

There are several things you can do. If it is not too windy, you can create a windbreak around the flower using a jacket, sheets of cardboard, or a friend. The drawbacks to this approach are that your windbreak often blocks the light, or the cardboard can blows away, or your friend falls asleep under a tree while waiting for you to take a picture.

In my bag I carry a thin sheet of white nylon large enough to cover my tripod, the flower, and me. The nylon has the advantage to acting as a light diffuser AND a windbreak. Plus, if your friends were not sure just how geeky you are, when they see you walking around in your white tent, there will be no doubt at all.

Short of cutting the flower and taking it indoors, the most reliable way to keep a flower still while you photograph it is to grab it by the throat and hold it. That turns out to be a tough thing to do with your hands. So I put together a small kit containing the things I need to temporarily harness a blossom without harming it.

Florist wire. Use a light-weight (24 gauge) green florist wire to wrap around and strengthen a soft stem such as a tulip. Leave a strand of wire protruding as a point of attachment for a clamp to avoid crushing the stem itself. Use a heavier wire (16 gauge) to stiffen a stem.

Armature wire: A heavy-duty (1/8th inch) aluminum wire will support a clamp and you can poke it into the ground or wrap it around a heavy branch. Coat hanger wire will serve the same purpose but it is a bit harder to work with.

Clamps: Alligator clips are easy to connect to armature wire and are fine for use with tough stems. The Hirshmann 2mm, black test clamp will work on woody stems. A bit of plastic tubing cut to cover the teeth on these clamps will make them less damaging.Hair clips make great flower holders and they don't damage stems.

This is a home made clamp made of a hair clip, a length of armature wire, and a bit of gaffer tape.

And the hair clip clamp in place.

If you are thinking that all this brutality toward flowers seems unwarranted, I hear you. You could always use a flash to add more light and get the depth of field you need. But lighting flowers with flash can be tricky too. We are going to have to save that subject for another lesson.

One more thing. All of this advice will work fine when you are shooting in your own garden. Before you go a-clamping flowers in a public garden or in your neighbor's yard, however, I suggest you ask permission. Otherwise they might wonder why some stranger is running around man-handling the vegetation.

A few years ago National Geographic sent me to photograph the annual wildflower bloom in Western Australia. It was a great assignment. We camped for nine weeks in the Australian outback following the wildflower bloom starting from Darwin in the north and slowly working our way south to Albany. Here are some close up from that shoot.

Some wildflowers occur in only one small area of Western Australia. Exclusive to 25 square miles around the town of Eneabba, the Calytrix eneabbensis glistens like an ice palace in the morning dew.

Eucalyptus macrocarpa, large pink flower, the largest of the Eucalyptus flowers, common name, Rose of the West. The flower sheds its seed cap as the early morning sun heats the pod.

Verticordia grandiflora, Claw Featherflower, round yellow feather flower turns red-brown as it ages.

Darling RangeNational Park in Lesmurdie, Western Australia on the escarpment of the Darling Range east of Perth. Drosera macrantha, a kind of Sundew (insectivore) climbs on the leaves of the Blackboy, Xanthorrhoea preissii.

Dryandra seen against the late afternoon sun.

All Actual Info and TipsFlix