Tulips, viewpoints and black and white

click photo to enlarge

The red and yellow tulips in our garden look better than ever this year. I put that down to the much higher than usual rainfall that we've experienced during April, precipitation that began straight after drought conditions and restrictions were announced. In fact, thus far, as many wits have noted, this drought is the wettest drought on record! But drought or deluge, the tulips have liked it, though they haven't been so keen on the accompanying winds.

I photograph these flowers every year, and the low viewpoint I adopted with this shot is one I've tried before. I've shot them from directly above too, as well as from the side. Flowers are co-operative photographic subjects. In fact, the only two conditions that stop me photographing them at my convenience are wind and insect infestations, and even those circumstances are capable of producing interesting images. But the truth is, because we are so familiar with flowers, they do benefit from a variety of approaches to sustain the viewer's interest.

Periodically I like to try a black and white conversion of a flower photograph. It seems counter-intuitive that a subject that leans so heavily on colour can be improved in any way by being shown in black and white. However, some flowers display an entirely different character when seen this way, as this rose (and this one) demonstrate. So too with the tulips above. In colour the red and yellow combine with the blue of the sky to make three primary colours that impact strongly on the eye. The patches of colour that are the flower heads catch the eye first and give the viewer a lift: the shot has an upbeat feel to it, proclaiming "spring has sprung!" However, in black and white the eye tends to range across the whole of the image with the flower heads assuming less immediate importance. The mood of the shot is very different too, more subdued, even a touch sombre. The flowers look like they might have been photographed in bright moonlight, and the shadows of the knife-like leaves assume a greater importance. The texture of the petals and their subtle shading eventually draw the eye and give a quieter, subtler viewing experience than they exhibit in colour. I have a preference for one photograph over the other, but I think both, in their own way, have something to offer.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 26mm
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reflecting on flower photography

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From, broadly speaking, the sixteenth century to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, there was, among fine art painters, a hierarchy of genres: that is to say the subjects that it was deemed "best" to paint. The order of these genres changes slightly with time and country, but nonetheless shows a remarkable degree of unanimity. At the top, judged the most worthy of the artist's attention and the audience's time, was the "history painting", works that depicted subjects based on religion, allegory, myth or significant past events. At the bottom was the still life, paintings showing flowers, vases, fruit, household objects, food etc. Between these extremes, in descending order of importance, we find portraits (unsurprising in the days before photography, rather more so after the mid-nineteenth century), scenes of everyday life, landscapes and animal painting.

The revolution that art faced as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth shook this hierarchy of genres almost to pieces. History painting virtually disappeared, as did animal painting, but all the other genres continued and were much more equally plundered by painters who also added to the mix semi-abstract and abstract subjects. Interestingly, for a period, the somewhat derided still life (including flowers) assumed an importance in the painter's oeuvre that earlier centuries couldn't have imagined (with the exception perhaps of sixteenth and seventeenth century Flanders).

Today, within photography, there is something of a hierarchy of genres. I won't list what I think it is, and it's certainly not as fixed as it was in painting. However, I will tell you what I think is at or near the bottom - flower photography! At least that's the distinct impression I get from what I see and read. Why, I wonder, do some photographers disdain a subject that many great painters found to be very worthy of their attention? Do Marc Chagall's famous words, "Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding", hold no truth for photographers? I certainly have no hesitation in choosing flowers or other still life arrangements for my images. As a basis for working with and exploring colour, light and shade, line, mood and all the other facets that we can bring to photography, I think flowers offer a lot. I can understand photographers being drawn to subjects and approaches that preclude flowers, but not their disparagement of them as a subject: that shows a limited vision and ignorance.

Today's photograph shows a couple of the blooms on one of our Impatiens hawkeri (New Guinea Busy Lizzie). This particular variety has beautiful orange/red flowers that go uncommonly well with its dark green/brown foliage. I took some care to find a directional natural light in a relatively dark room to make these flowers glow and show off as best I could the qualities that Chagall acknowledged he could never match.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/3
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Gaillardia reflected

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Last year I noticed some Gaillardia flowers growing in my neighbour's garden. It was a type of flower that had never caught my eye before, but I was impressed by the multiple heads of well-figured, strongly coloured blooms. The plant is a perennial and so when, a while later, my neighbour decided to re-configure her border she asked us if we wanted the plants. Naturally we said "Yes, please!", dug them up and put them in the vegetable garden to over-winter. We hadn't reckoned, of course, on last winter being one of the coldest in recent years. It "did for" quite a few of our more tender garden plants, and it also saw off the Gaillardias, all that is except for one solitary, hardy specimen.

When spring arrived we moved the survivor into a border and bought some Gaillardia seeds to grow our own plants. These proved very successful and now, in July 2010 they are in bloom at various locations around the garden. And a fine sight they are too. The other day I was prompted by the colors and patterns of the flower heads to try a photograph of one placed on a mirror. I've done photographs of this sort before, and quite like the way it produces an image that reveals the underside and the top of the bloom in the same shot. The yellow and red/orange of the petals called for a black background so I stood a piece of black vinyl in a suitable position and took my photograph in natural light near a window.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Is perfection overrated?

click photo to enlarge
Surfing the net a few days ago I came across a photographer's tips for taking good photographs of flowers. The very first sentence explained that to take a fine flower photograph you first had to find flawless flowers. That pulled me up short (and not only because of the alliteration!). If he'd said that to take photographs of the sort that are wanted by greeting card manufacturers, calendar designers, seed companies, etc, you must select perfect flowers, then I wouldn't have had a problem: these commercial concerns have a need for images of unblemished blooms that show no signs of age, disease or malformation. But, to assert that imperfect flowers cannot be the subject of a good photograph is nonsense.

Even a cursory knowledge of the history of painting reveals the deliberate and widespread use of flawed blooms by painters for the attractive, melancholic and symbolic qualities that they place before the viewer. And where the still life paintings of the seventeenth and subsequent centuries went in this regard, so too, in the past 160 years have many photographers. A while ago I posted such an image, showing a vase of hydrangeas that were well past their "best", but whose faded qualities attracted my meagre skills.

However, I have a feeling that today's photograph may well have been the sort that the photographer had in mind. It is about as close to perfect as I am able to get in terms of the blooms and the composition. These immaculate red tulips were in a churchyard, and I decided to use a long focal length to achieve sharp flowers at the centre of the shot, with those in front and behind out of focus. It's the sort of trick that photographers use to give a shot depth, and to focus the viewer's attention on a particular part of a composition. Oh, and you perhaps won't be surprised to find that we've selected this image for a few of our home-made birthday cards this year!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Chrysanthemums

click photo to enlarge
Intermittent rain stopped play today - if wielding a sledge hammer and a crow bar to break up a sheet of concrete can be characterised as such. However, it wasn't sufficiently wet that I couldn't finish the final piece, and move on to marking out the replacement hard area and the adjoining beds for shrubs and flowers. Six mornings of hard labour combined with carting away the debris has broken the back of the work. Fortunately my back hasn't quite broken and I survive intact and ready for the next steps in our landscaping project.

Anyway, by way of a change I decided to have a go at photographing some chrysanthemums that are sitting in a vase on a table in our living room. I usually move flowers around to photograph them, often placing them on a different surface, in strongly directional natural light, and putting a "photographic" background behind them - in my case it's usually a large sheet of card or vinyl. However, this time I thought I'd leave them in situ since the colours seemed to be working well together.

The composition is my usual one - the vase of flowers just off centre with a couple of blooms on the surface nearby, an old painters' trick that adds a little asymmetry and visual interest. One day I mean to really work at a composition involving a vase of flowers, and add a collection of interesting objects to the shot in the manner of the seventeenth century Dutch painters. But, for now, my work is focused elsewhere, so domestic shots and fairly basic still-life images are likely to dominate the blog for the next week or two.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro, (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Photographing vases of flowers

click photo to enlarge
The subject matter of photography and painting overlap to a very great extent, which isn't surprising given they are both visual arts. (I'll leave for the moment the discussion about whether photography is an art or a craft). The earliest photographers, such as Fox Talbot and Daguerre, drew heavily on the precedents of painting, but as the new medium grew, it did find ways of looking at and recording the world that were its own. But, if you consider most genres of photography, such as portraiture, landscape, travel, sport, wildlife, abstract, semi-abstract, it's true that these are now traditional forms that are shared with painting.

Still life, too, is found in both media. The other day, however, after I'd been browsing the work of photographers ancient and modern, amateur and professional, it struck me that still life pictures of flowers in vases is a mainstay of painting, but is very rare in photography. Why is this, I wonder? It's certainly true that painters use the vase of flowers, bowl of fruit, etc as a technical exercise in light, colour, form, line and the rest. So why don't photographers? Moreover, a vase of flowers is both controllable in terms of composition and lighting, and is an infinitely variable subject too. Perhaps it's that a vase of flowers, as a subject, has become so associated with painting that photographers are reticent about using it. Do they see it as a dull, staid subject, not worthy of a click or two? Or do they not see the possibilities inherent in this simple idea? Whatever the reason, today's post is, if nothing else, a plea to photographers to consider the humble vase of flowers.

I've photographed this subject for a number of years, and quite a few of my efforts have featured in this blog. Today's shot is my, by now seasonal image of carnations, or rather, in this instance a single carnation. My aim with this image was to find a different take on the vase of flowers that owed something to the fact that it is made with a camera. This heavily foreshortened shot from above with the shallow depth of field of my macro lens seemed to fulfill that objective.

For anyone who is wondering what I've done previously with this subject here are six examples.

Chinese lanterns, red tulips, daisies, dead hydrangeas, heliopsis, carnations and verbena.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro, (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/15
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: +1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Photographing flowers

click photo to enlarge
Any photographer who enjoys their garden inevitably ends up pointing their camera at it. Some enjoy capturing the entirety, or large parts, of their plot, showing off the structure of the planting and the seasonal changes that take place. Others home in on details, isolating groups of flowers or leaves, individual blooms, or other garden-associated subjects (i.e. things other than plants). I tend towards the latter approach.

The challenge with photographing flowers is to produce something interesting or new. Interesting is easier of course, though what interests one person may well be of no interest to another. When shooting flowers there are many variations and permutations - group or individual bloom, macro of flower, include leaves or not, angle, lighting, weather, etc. But coming up with something new on a subject that has been photographed many, many times is nearly impossible. One of the few occasions when I feel I've come anywhere near originality is in my image of some geranium (pelargonium) leaves.

We removed some potentillas from a border a while ago because they were aged shrubs, well past their best, producing few flowers. To fill the space until a more permanent solution was possible my wife planted a selection of annuals, including a packet of mixed rudbeckia. I took one of these striking blooms that are now in flower and tried to come up with a different kind of photograph of this familiar plant. Above is the best of the shots I took. I was aiming for a cropped, square image with the centre of the flower and a quarter of the petals centred top left, but the uncropped original seemed to have a better balance of flower to black space.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro, (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/4
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Heucheras

click photo to enlarge
How do you choose the plants that you have in your garden? Like most people I select plants on two main criteria - usefulness and beauty. Let's take usefulness first. That's a quality that applies to everything that goes into the vegetable garden because here the plants are either edible or they provide flavour (herbs). But usefulness extends beyond food plants. A large flowering cherry provides us with welcome shade in summer, offers food to the blackbirds at the same time, and is a good place for a nestbox and bird feeders. It also, of course, offers beauty all year round, but especially when it is in blossom. Other useful plants are the trees and shrubs that screen areas, or mark boundaries, or act as wind-breaks,. or give fruit.

Decorative plants - flowering annuals and perennials, foliage plants, etc are chosen mainly for the beauty that they bring to the garden. Some have an extra quality being suitable for cutting and displaying indoors in vases, but in the main they earn their position by how they look.

However, there is one further criterion that influences the plants I choose for the garden (and to have in the house), namely is it a good subject for photography! Flowers that grow from bulbs are often large, distinctive and photogenic, consequently bluebells, tulips, narcissi, etc proliferate in our borders. Climbing plants and trees that have blossom are also good subjects for the camera, and they too are found in numbers. But plants with distinctive leaves such as New Zealand flax, hostas, begonias, and many perennials also offer something worth photographing.

We're currently doing some work in one area of the garden that is overhung by trees, and it's likely that more heucheras will be planted here. These evergreen plants with leaves of varying colours and upright, delicate flowers are quite tolerant of shade. We currently have a few in a different location that is also under trees, and they are proving their worth, offering something for the eye (and camera) right through the year, so it seems a good idea to use them elsewhere. Today's photograph shows one of them, a dark leaved variety, after rain, the gloss on its leaves adding to the shine of the water droplets.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro, (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On