I pulled up on my front drive yesterday and saw these…..
Absolutely tiny weeny little flowers. They are climbing through the paving stone crevices, amongst the fallen Magnolia petals. The flowers are around a millimetre diameter. How can anything so intricate be so so very small? I can’t believe I nearly parked on them. I shall have to draw a ‘No Parking Zone’ around them.
MUST. PHOTOGRAPH. IMMEDIATELY.
I’ll add the photos below after.
And thats all I have to say about that.
Update
I thought I’d show you my photos from an hour lying on the ground photographing these little flowers. They are not photos that I would sell, but they can help show what I am looking for in a fine art photograph. Also….look how perfectly designed and beautiful the flowers are!
I would say both photos lack pin sharp focus. Often a great deal of my wildflower photos are not in focus, artistic licence you see, but a small area will have pin share focus. This is achieve through my macro lens, which is arguably the most beautiful lens in existence. Anyway, I digress…..
Wind, ground shaking, me breathing, my hands shaking, lack of concentration, etc etc, are things that can cause the flower not to be in exact focus. This is hard to achieve with a macro lens in perfect conditions, and near impossible in the wind. In this case there was a small breeze, the dogs were running around me wondering why I wasn’t giving them complete attention (Kylo, the bain of my life, even took the liberty of standing on my back) and causing a breeze and the ground to shake slightly. I was also distracted by my son asking me, repeatedly, when dinner would be ready and what it would be.
The background is important to me in my wildflower photography. Though it is thrown into a beautiful soft and almost creamy blur of shadow, care still must be taken. for example in these photos, particularly the one on the right, the variation in background colour and tone, is distracting.
The composition is also not quite right. I have difficulties explaining what I look for in terms of composition, I just know when it’s right and, despite cropping these photos, it is still not right. I will try to get better at explaining my thoughts on composition in future Blogs.
And lastly here are the unedited original photos. I always shoot RAW and edit in Lightroom or Photoshop. Because I am OldSkool I spend time getting my photos right in camera. They feel more authentic, to me, for this type of photographic subject. I like my photos to reflect the natural beauty of the flowers.
Gear
Camera - Canon 5D Mk iv
Lens - Canon EF 100mm f2.8L Macro IS USM Lens