The peak of the summer flower season – cultivated and wild – has arrived and saving the colorful blooms in pixels is an ideal way to keep summer's bounty around all year. Flower photographs make wonderful collages in a hallway or small room or large prints of landscapes featuring wildflowers in the foreground accentuate any office, meeting room or living area. 

Many of these same techniques applied to photographing flowers outdoors will also come in handy for photographing bouquets of flowers during the dark, cold days of winter. 

Here are twelve tips to create stunning flower images and capture photos that will bring warmth, color, cheer and smiles all year long. 

 

1. Use the right gear

First, you want to make sure you are using the right gear for photographing flowers. This includes a digital camera (DSLR or mirrorless) set in manual mode. Manual mode – not manual focus – will allow you to get more creative with the depth of field and the lighting. 

You also want to use a macro lens or a long zoom lens. More on this in tip #2. For my photos, I have enjoyed the Nikon z 105mm lens and the Nikon z 50mm lens for flower photography. I also enjoy using a long prime lens, like the Nikon z 600mm f6.3 lens, to create an extra compressed image.

Finally, you want to have a tripod to help steady the camera. The tripod, such as one with a center post, or the ballhead on the tripod should allow for positioning the camera over the flower as well. If a flower is moving or the camera is moving, it can be hard to maintain the focus point with a very narrow depth of field, making the tripod a helpful tool.

 

Flower_arrangement_2The flowers sit on a table prior to setting up the reception area at Will and Heather's wedding.

2. Focus on the details 

Flowers come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Focus on the intricacies of each flower to showcase the unique aspect of that variety. For example, the elephant head flower, common in the meadows of Colorado's high country, has a feature that actually looks like a trunk. The flower truly is quite reminiscent of Bing Bong in the Pixar movie "Inside Out."

To focus in on details, use a long lens, stand beyond the minimum focal distance of the lens, get low and then photograph the feature putting the focal point on the feature itself. To bring more attention to that feature, find a distant background and use a shallow depth of field by using an aperture in the range of f2.8 to f4 to make that focal area sharper, which helps draw the eye into that portion of the photo.

A macro lens can also work well to focus in on details but a macro lens allows the photographer to get close to the subject usually having an extremely small minimal focal distance of just a few inches.

Also make sure to use a stopped down aperture of f18 or higher. This will give a deep depth of field to the entire flower to bring out the details throughout the layers of the flower.

3. Avoid windy days

Wind can be a nightmare for outdoor flower photographers. The flowers won’t stay still and can be extremely difficult to freeze into a tack sharp image. There is the option of having the moving flowers work in your favor by using a slower shutter speed for an abstract blurred effect.

To achieve the blurred effect, set the aperture, also called the f-stop, to f16 or higher. Then slow the shutter speed to about 1/10 of a second. Make sure to use a shutter speed that won’t overexpose the flowers and adjust the shutter speed to create the desired effect of the movement. 

If wind is just a consistent issue in a particular area, try using a light tent. I have a shooting tent covered in white fabric to allow light to pass through while also blocking the wind. This can be handy for photographing macro photos in the field. To place the tent around the flowers (be careful to not damage other plants in the area), I cut the bottom fabric out of the tent to be able to center the tent around the subject. This product works best for shorter flowers.

 

Blue_columbine_2A blue columbine is in peak bloom along the trail to Lake Isabelle in the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area, Colorado

4. Cloudy days create a natural soft box

Harsh, overhead light never provides ideal conditions for any subject in a photograph. It creates harsh shadows and contrasty scenes. 

Clouds, however, especially thin, soft ones that fill the sky, create a natural filter to block those harsh rays of sunlight.  

Weather right after storms can also be ideal for flower photographs because the rain drops on the flowers can add a unique element in the scene while the clouds soften the light on the shooting conditions.

Remember to adjust the settings on the camera to properly expose for the lower light conditions and avoid underexposing the photograph.

 

Wild_iris_Big_Branch_Marsh_NWR_2016_1A wild iris set against a background of vivid green on a sunny morning at Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge near Lacombe, Louisiana

5. Use color theory concepts

Color theory could be an article all on its own but there are some basic concepts that work well and can help guide a photographer to better flower photos. 

The color wheel, which is made up of 12 colors – red, orange, yellow, chartreuse green, green, spring green, cyan, azure, blue, violet, magenta and rose – is a tool used by all artists to know what colors look good together. There are the complementary colors, like orange and blue, that balance each other. There are monochromatic colors, the same color but in different tones and shades. And then the analogous colors, like the three shades of green or any combination of three colors next to each other. 

For flowers, the complementary colors of red or pink and green is an easy combination to pick up. Think of Parry primrose or fireweed that naturally have these colors.

 

6. Get into the flowers

With this technique, the viewer can feel like they are sitting amongst the field of flowers. The various layers on the flowers can also create an ethereal scene, emphasized when using a shallow depth of field.

While composing the photograph, consider how the colors play with each. Think about any distracting objects in the background, like blobs of white created by blurred white flowers, or stray branches or stems peeking into the sides of the frame. All of these can draw the viewer's eyes away from the main subject.

Again, remember not to sit on other flowers to accomplish this technique. I have found sitting on the side of a trail works well.

 

Flowers_YBB_2015_4A closeup of orange-red Indian paintbrush in Yankee Boy Basin near Ouray, Colorado.

7. Get close

Other than tall, stalky flowers, like wild sunflowers, most flowers grow closer to the ground – from the miniscule tundra flowers to the happy black-eye Susans that populate Colorado’s mountain meadows, lakesides and trails. 

Get low so that the background is farther away from your subject rather than directly behind it when photographing down on a flower. The farther the background is, the more likely it will be to lack its detail. 

And by getting low, the details of the flower can be easily picked up for a more intriguing and dynamic image.

 

Bluebonnets_Ennis_2016_6A single bluebonnet backlit by the morning sun near Ennis, Texas

8. Try high key, low key or backlighting techniques

These two types of photos create an artistic and stylistic photograph that invokes drama and unique perspectives, whether photographing flowers indoors or outdoors. 

For high key, expose your subject so that the histogram sits to the right side without clipping the highlights. The background in this situation can go to white but make sure your subject retains detail in the highlights. 

For low key and backlit photos, expose for the highlights, which will make the rest of your image dark and in the shadows if going for low key or create unique rim lighting situations when exposed for the scene.

Although my preference is for high key with flowers, which really makes the colors pop, the low key style can create intense drama in situations like rainy days when water droplets might light up on a flower in dark shadows. Of the three, backlight images is always my favorite, where the light passing through the edges of flowers creates a soft glow.

 

Hummingbird_YBB_2015_1A hummingbird perches on top of a white stalk of flowers in Yankee Boy Basin near Ouray, Colorado

9. Use a shallow depth of field

Flowers provide ideal subjects to create dreamy and abstract images. Lock the focal point on the center of the flower, such as on the pollen covered stamen or the uniquely shaped pistil. 

By using a shallow depth of field, attained by setting the aperture to one of the widest settings like f3.2 or f4, the rest of the flower blurs out into soft patters of color.

 

Bluebonnets_Texas_2016_10A closeup of a bluebonnet from the top side near Ennis, Texas

10. Play with shapes

Flowers have natural patterns and lines that can often be overlooked. Consider looking at the shapes created by the petals as they move around the center of the flower. Look at how the leaves attach to the stem to find a unique line leading up to the flower. Focus in on the leaves rather than the flower. 

 

11. Tell the bigger story

Big meadows of flowers set against the impressive Rocky Mountains or desert blooms in an otherwise drab landscape never fail to impress in photographs. Take the photo as a landscape, getting in super close to the flowers in the foreground to emphasize their shape and color as well as their connection to the larger scene.

 

CA_Poppy_2016_1The underside of the California poppy on a sunny day near Angels Camp, California

12. Work the subject

As photographers admiring a flower, we may just photograph the flower as we initially see it – usually from the front side. But step back, go low and get in close to see and photograph all of the different sides of that bloom. Photograph it by looking directly down on it; you would be amazed at the patterns and shapes that can be captured. Look at it from the underside, framing the flower against a sky of clouds or finding complementary colors, such as an orange poppy set against a blue sky. Photograph a flower with a clean green background and then recompose the scene to frame the flower against pops of color.

If you still find you desire prints of flowers but do not have the subjects available, consider purchasing a print from my vast collection of photographic prints. Save 20% on any flower image or image with a flower at Creeks And Critters Nature Images by entering code 20FLOWERS at checkout.