My friend Julie has a blog called Ramblings from Jewels where she is always posting pictures of flowers and other plants, often from her own garden. Looking through her images inspired me to take some shots of flowers on my own, since I don’t do that sort of thing very often. I’m not really sure why, either. Part of me thinks it’s a bit cliché to go around snapping photos of flowers because, well, flowers are everywhere and surely I can’t add anything to the collective photographic pool that hasn’t been seen before. And yet, when I see some of the pictures that Julie and others post, I start to think maybe I can have my own original take on flowers too. Anyway, I went out to shoot some a few days ago and ended up with this, which I was not pleased with at all. It was mid-day, the sun was shining, and as a result this picture was filled with harsh shadows and washed-out colors. I went back a few days later when it was nice and cloudy, and got the one you see above instead, with which I am quite pleased. It did take a bit of tinkering in Lightroom to bring out some of the colors and vibrancy (yay for shooting in RAW!) but man, I’m telling you, no amount of post-processing can fix an image that’s just bad to begin with. Practice, practice, practice, I tell ya.
Tom says
You would be surprised at what flowers can do. When you have a few more photos, please place them in a folder and send them to me on my email. I have a friend who I call the “The Flower Man.” He is constantly posting about his excursions into his backyard where he gets lost for a time in Flowerland. It has a relaxing, otherwordly effect on me to just sit and read about his mini-adventures. So, Flower Power is still alive! Just don’t try my experiment I once tried: Drizzled white Karo syrup on a bunch of flowers, sprinkled them with sugar, let them dry in the sun, and then ate them like candy! And now, I know where Skittles come from!!