Photographing flowers in their habitats

[vaneramos]

Nature photographers treat flowers as gems. And they are. Their beauty is irresistible. Why are they so appealing? I have reflected on this question in writing before. They have evolved to be attractive. It isn't our eyes in particular that the plant wants to catch, but eyes nonetheless. It uses an appealing combination of colour, form and fragrance to seduce pollinators. Flowers aren't the only notable organisms that do this. Birds and butterflies, for example, also use colour and form to attract sexual attention. People enjoy the side-benefits, and photographers are drawn to these subjects endlessly.





I enjoy them as much as the next person, but as an ecologist I am particularly intrigued by the way these organisms exist in their habitats. Nature photography often fails to see the forest for the trees, or in this case the forest for the flowers. If I isolate them all the time, am I showing them for what they really are: an organism dependant on a complex network of other living and inorganic elements for its survival? My camera, through its own deficiency, helped draw my attention to this. Offering me little control over exposure, focus or depth of field, it rarely captures the fine details of a flower's beauty. For example bright white and yellow flowers are usually overexposed, and the focus mechanism has difficulty with reds. But occasionally, when I find creative ways of including the foreground in a wider landscape, the camera's vision amazes me.

Example 1. Example 2.

These photos present different problems than close-up shots. Artistic composition is a challenge. That's why I had so much trouble photographing the leatherwood flowers yesterday. If I couldn't isolate them from the complexity of their environment, they were hard to see. The image I posted in texture has no focal point. Besides, taking a snail's eye point of view can be uncomfortable or impossible. In the case of the image above, holding the camera at ground level prevented me from seeing its view screen, so a lot of guesswork was involved.

Images that manage to include the surroundings tell more of a story. The photo of bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) in an otherwise bare forest, shows something about the plant that a close-up would miss. And see the new seedlings clustering around the stems of the parent plants? While I have no intention of abandoning my efforts at simpler photographs of flowers, I set myself a project of concentrating on more complex ones.

This is an experiment. It starts here with Sanguinaria, one of the first Ontario widlflowers to bloom in spring.

Comments

[ruralrob.livejournal.com]

I'm just wondering, in the absence of speed or aperture controls, if you have something like a "landscape" setting on your camera. It will likely dleiver excellent depth of field, suitable for showing something up close in the foreground as well as the background in sharp detail. (I know this is the exact opposite of what people generally aim for, where it's often preferable to have the background out of focus, but it would suit your particular purposes as outlined today very well. Anyway, it's the kind of thing worth playing around with.)

kenhighcountry used this technique very effectively in his nature photos, but he's not around anymore.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes he is, and he's still on your friends list. Are you being discrete, or did you miss the name change?

I have known Ken, or his wife at least, since before LJ, but surprisngly I had forgotten about his nature photography. Oh, I forget all kinds of things, no surprise really.

The only alternative setting my camera offers is the close-up. With the regular setting the flowers would be out of focus. I like the soft background, though. It gives an impression of the surroundings while maintaining the focal point. I have to work on composition, though. I realize this one doesn't work as well as the two examples from last year, but it's a starting point.

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

I'm in the midst of giving final critiques and exams and my mind is kind of numb however, one of the classes I teach is about scanning film because it gives a wider tonal range and possibly more lenses available for use. One of the options available is digital manipulation (blurring backgrounds) although, that takes some time to learn to do well. Your image above is fantastic.

I also think the issues you raise are true for film cameras as well: depth of field, exposure values, focus. My thinking is always use whatever tool you have to its fullest. I've never had a fancy camera. I've used a basic camera all my life, manual focus and operation, little flash, natural lighting, and studio lighting. Exploit what you have and it will CONTINUE to delight and amaze us just as you've been doing all along, Van. :-)

The digital camera I'm using belongs to the Univ. It was a pain getting it geared to mostly manual but, now that it is set, I love it. Most people seem to prefer to not want to think about what they're doing but, I always think about what I'm doing in photography: lighting, composition, foreground-to-background relationship, scale, texture, and how the image might be "read" by whoever sees it. Those thoughts are mostly unconscious, naturally, at this point in my life. I've been doing photography since 1965 (and I am still learning it).

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Wow. This is a bloodroot? Exquisite. I didn't know they bloomed so early.

Some things bloom with such suddenness, it's no wonder our ancestors (or ourselves) attribute this to a miraculous event.

A friend's friend was looking for a nursery that would sell bloodroot (a seedling or potted plant, not just seeds), and I researched it for her and found a bunch of articles about the threat the plant has suffered due to folks harvesting them in the wild in the southeastern US.

I've been ill today. Your photo helps brighten my mood.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Danny and I went for a walk yesterday and were both taking pictures. He is going to let me use his Nikon Coolpix sometime. He offered to show me how to use it yesterday, but it was a stressful day, so I preferred to use the time to relax, enjoy his company and not think too much about anything. So I'll do it another time, but it will fun. He likes to trick the camera into adjusting exposure, which I can do with my camera, too, but he doesn't use manual settings much. I told him about my time as a reporter, when I had to take tons of photos. Composition was not especially important, but getting the right exposure was essential, because if it was wrong, the newspaper couldn't use it, so I wouldn't be doing my job. I did lots and lots of bracketing. It was great because it taught me to have a great sense of how my camera would read the light. After I stopped working as a reporter, I continued to use the manual settings on my camera most of the time, because I trusted my own judgment better than the automation. Unfortunately I don't have that option with my digital camera, so I'm losing the skill. Hopefully it will come back to me when I have the opportunity.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yesterday Danny and I were wandering along the near side of the river taking pictures when we happened upon a small clump of bloodroot. I realized I had never seen any around there before, in the area close to the city neighbourhoods. A few metres away, on the far side of the river, which is slightly less accessible, the ground is dotted with these lovely white flowers. It has never occurred to me before why I never see bloodroot on this side; people have taken them.

Keep looking for a source. You should be able to find ethical nurseries which propogate wildflowers from seed. I have seen bloodroot available from respectable growers around here.

It's one of the belles of the spring woodland. Here's a more "traditional" shot so you can see the sunny centre.