How to shoot flowers in winter?

Let's talk about how to shoot plants in winter, especially flowers. In fact, many photographers like to shoot flowers, which provides ample opportunities for obtaining vivid and incredibly beautiful artistic photos. In most cases, you don't need any expensive photographic equipment to get high-quality flower photos, unless it is worthwhile to use wide-angle optics to create flower landscapes. In this article, we will try to provide some basic suggestions for taking flowers.

How to arrange floral photography in winter

It seems that flowers can't be photographed in winter unless you go to a warm area. When preparing to shoot flowers and plants, be sure to check and remove tiny dust if necessary, or simply remove absolutely unnecessary things, such as broken pollen or fallen leaves (which can be fixed with green ribbons). Remember, it is a rule to write down the names of flowers and plants to be photographed. This information may be useful when you plan to show pictures on the theme website.

Lighting and background of flowers

Generally speaking, natural lighting is most suitable for taking flowers. Unlike flash, this kind of lighting does not produce sharp shadows and provides good background lighting. It is recommended to shoot in the early morning and evening, when the natural light will become soft and warm, but bright sunny days are far from the best choice for shooting plants. It is ideal to hide the sun behind thin clouds, which will create the best scene lighting without anxious glare and sinking shadows.

When shooting green plants, it is sometimes very beneficial to use backlight-it helps to emphasize the amazing beauty of delicate petals. Lighting is not the best assistant for photographers to shoot flowers. But sometimes it is recommended. In particular, the auxiliary flash helps to brighten the shadow and reduce the contrast of the picture, thus providing a more spectacular and higher quality picture. When shooting in the studio, you can use the soft scattered light in the window. Just arrange the flowers by the window and let the light shine on them from the side.

When taking pictures of flowers and plants immediately after the rain, when water droplets are still on the leaves and stems of flowers, interesting photos will be taken. These small water droplets reflect the richness of all colors in the world. Naturally, in winter, you can imitate the rain in the greenhouse by spraying the flowers in the bottle. This sprayer can be bought in shops, or it can only be used in ordinary bottles of detergent or cleaning windows.

First of all, the background of the flowers should be clear and sharp. Because flowering plants are incredibly beautiful and expressive, there is no need to use any special background that will distract attention. Flowers look good on a simple black background. To create such a background, you can buy a square meter of black velvet or velveteen, then put it behind the flowers and throw a piece of cloth on the appropriate object. The flowers should be placed close to the background, so that the light can be reflected from the cloth, and the black in the photo becomes real black. In this case, it is best to shoot at close range.

Another option is a white or light background. To create it, you only need a roll of plain paper or white cardboard. One cardboard must be placed behind the flowers to create the background, and the other cardboard can be used to reflect light, so that the background can be illuminated by indirect light.

Composition when shooting flowers

Taking a flower photo always starts with the idea, carefully considering the overall composition and choosing the best shooting angle. This is the most important part of photographing plants. This idea is mainly about the feelings and emotions you want to capture in the picture to share with the audience. Before you start shooting, you need to look at the flowers from all angles, determine the most favorable angle for the plants to look at, pay attention to bright colors, color contrast and unusual patterns, and how the shadows fall on the flowers. Only by analyzing this information in detail can we choose the best composition and shooting angle of future pictures. Set up a tripod so that you can take pictures at eye level-it is not recommended to take pictures from it.

Following the general rules of composition depends on what you want to emphasize in the photo-color, shape, texture, long and strange water droplets on stems or leaves. Use unusual angles, such as shooting from a lower angle, playing with light and shadow, and changing the depth of field to find unusual compositions. To increase the scale and depth of a photo image, add a foreground plane and a middle plane to the composition. Always ensure that there are no distracting objects in the frame, such as nameplates or people. To combat this unwanted object in the photo, you can search for other shooting angles or use a larger zoom. Reducing the depth of field and increasing the aperture can make the background beautiful.

Please remember that photos must have the necessary blank space. This kind of photos with free space on the side will look more attractive, and also provide more opportunities for post-processing. In composition, the three-point method is very suitable and is usually used in landscape photography. Odd numbers have not lost their relevance-in a picture, odd numbers of similar objects look more interesting than even numbers. For example, 3 or 5 flowers look more beautiful and interesting than 4 plants. When choosing the best shooting angle, make sure that the shadow does not overlap with the subject.

How to make color images clear

When shooting flower arrangement, it is very important to focus clearly and accurately, so it is best to shoot in manual mode instead of using camera to focus automatically. When shooting plants, it is a common problem that the photos are not clearly focused or blurred. How to deal with it? First, focus on the part of the photo that you think should be the clearest, and then press the shutter button without unnecessary movement.

It is best to use a release line and tripod to shoot flowers, which can ensure the stability of the camera and significantly reduce the risk of blurred photos. Because the photographer tries to take a close-up of the subject without properly configuring the camera, it is often out of focus when shooting flower arrangements. This largely depends on the shooting distance. You can choose portrait mode or close-up mode. The latter is recommended when shooting at a distance of 2.5 to 30 cm from plants.

By the way, macro mode (if the camera supports it) is very useful when shooting plants and flowers. Macro mode allows you to get beautiful and detailed photos of flowers. In this mode, the photo frame will completely fill the flowers themselves or some parts of the flowers. However, in this case, it is most likely that you will have to use an external flash or apply a slower shutter speed. The best effect can be achieved by using a special macro lens, but not every photographer can afford it. The macro lens can be replaced by an extension ring installed between the camera and the lens to shorten the focusing distance.

Finally, it is worth making some suggestions-when shooting flowers, don't try to shoot everything continuously just by clicking the frame. When shooting, carefully select the most interesting flower specimens, consider the composition and choose the most favorable shooting angle. This will bring you better and more interesting results.