Hydrangea arborescens "Annabelle"

click photo to enlarge
The same flower photographed under different lighting conditions can produce photographs with quite different qualities. The other day I was photographing Hydrangea arborescens "Annabelle", the most popular cultivar of the Smooth Hydrangea of eastern North America, a variety that is quite hardy and valued because of its large white blooms. It grows in semi-shade in our garden near a large willow tree and at this time of year it gets intermittent direct sunlight.

My shots were taken with a 100mm macro lens and the camera was mounted on a tripod. The main photograph was taken when the sun was out but the bloom was in shade. Here the bright but diffuse light was above and the shade from the tree helped to reveal the detail of each petal. The smaller photograph has the camera lower down, shooting upwards, with the light behind the petals. A sheet of white vinyl gives the white background and reflects a bit of light onto the subject. The aperture on that shot is f4 against the f16 of the main photograph and the shallower depth of field adds to the "dreamier" quality that it exhibits, something that I think complements the brightness.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 0.8 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Cherry blossom pond

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"Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless?  To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring - these are even more deeply moving.  Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with flowers are worthier of our admiration."
Yoshida Kenko (c.1283-c.1350), Japanese author and Buddhist monk

Look at photographs and paintings of flowers and you'll find that the vast majority depict them in full bloom. Perfect flowers are generally thought to be best to represent on canvas or in print. Buds of flowers-to-be and the dying blooms of flowers past are viewed as less than perfect; the former because they hold only promise, the latter because they remind us of what was and what all life becomes. And yet, a small proportion of painters and photographers choose to show flowers before or past their peak. Why? Well, it's often because we are sated with images of perfection. Or that, in what can seem to some an odd way, we admire the look of beauty marred by imperfection and the symbolism of both promise and decay. Faded beauty prompts different thoughts than does the full flush of youth or maturity, thoughts with a poignant and melancholy edge that those of a Romantic persuasion enjoy. The quotation above by Kenko, a contemporary of Dante, reminds us that we can find beauty and something worth admiring in less than perfect circumstances.

It's feelings of this sort that prompt my annual photographs of emerging and dying water lily leaves and led me to photograph some hydrangeas that I found past their best in a church. The cherry blossom on this pond in Billingborough, Lincolnshire, probably provoked many photographs when it was on the tree, yet on the water it has its attractions too. I've photographed this subject before using a longer focal length. For today's shot I selected a wider angle to capture the beauty of the reflections and the massed pink petals before they discoloured and were subject to the decay that afflicts all living things.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hydrangeas and high key

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My wife spotted one of the detached, dead flower heads of our giant hydrangea as we walked through the pergola the other day and, as she pointed it out to me, I made a mental note to examine it as a potential photographic subject. By the time I got round to retrieving it for that purpose the wind had blown it, tumbleweed-style, across the garden and it had suffered quite a bit of damage. Nonetheless I took it indoors and and placed it on a white background under a bright light, hoping to base an image around the cluster of lace-like petals. But, as is often the case, what I saw in my mind's eye didn't appear quite the way I imagined it when I came to look through the viewfinder. The multiplicity of groups of four petals was simply too much: a simpler composition was required.

I tried a shot of part of the flower head with the edge offering a ragged outline against a plain black or white background. However, whilst better it still didn't satisfy me. So I took to pulling off a few individual petal groups and examining them. The attraction, it seemed to me, lay in the delicate veins of each individual petal and the way they were grouped  in fours like the blades of a propeller. So I built this simple composition with three stems and set them on a white background with the light source behind and to the side to accentuate the key features.

My natural inclination is to aim for a "perfect" exposure or to under-expose. I have something of an aversion to over-exposure for reasons that I find hard to articulate. And yet, when I see a good "high key" shot with the main subject appearing out of a blazing white background I often like it. I have it in mind to try more of this kind of shot myself, and have done so very occasionally, as I did with this shell. Consequently I thought I'd try it again here. I haven't gone quite as far as with the shell - all the details are still showing - but it is much lighter and brighter than it would have been had I followed both my inclination and the light meter.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 0.3 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Cyclamen petals

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There are 20 species of cyclamen that collectively flower during every month of the year. Combine this with the striking, colourful, five-petalled flowers, the beautifully figured leaves and the reason for their widespread popularity becomes obvious. I've photographed them on a couple of occasions and each time managed to secure an image that was different from my usual flower shots. One of the blog posts - of a plant that had gone a touch "leggy" due to too much warmth - was where I first used the Marc Chagall quote that I repeated the other day. The other was a semi-abstract image of a single flower head reflected in a mirror.

We've had cyclamen as indoor pot plants for years, and we've valued the fact that they are not only long-flowering, but also provide winter colour for our window-sills in the cooler rooms of the house. However, there are species of cyclamen that will grow outdoors in the garden too, and a couple of years ago we planted some in our rockery. They are thriving, though whether through the activity of birds or due to weather and gravity, some of them have moved downhill and are flowering in the edge of a lawn.

The photograph above is a macro shot of some of our blooming indoor cyclamen. It was taken hand-held, rather speculatively, but turned out better than I expected. Reviewing the shot as it filled my computer screen the petals looked like turbulent waves on a pink sea. Reproduced on a small scale it has less impact, but still offers something I think.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 2000
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Looking for colour

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Today, despite the weather forecasters' predictions the day was sunny, bright and warm. Coming after one of the coldest periods in recent years, with its accompanying days of dark grey skies, it was a welcome change. Sitting on my bench in the garden I could almost imagine it was the end of March rather than late February.

So, motivated by the clarity, colour and brightness of everything I cast around for something colourful to photograph. The winter-flowering heather was showing fine white and purple hues, but the sun and shadows falling on it didn't help the composition. The clumps of snowdrops under the trees by the stream looked cheerful, but white and green wasn't showy enough for me. Nor were the odd yellow pansies that had survived the frost and snow. A passing tortoiseshell butterfly that also thought it was later in the year, and had awakened from it torpor, wouldn't settle long enough for me to get a decent shot, though I did photograph a small group of ladybirds huddled together on a conifer. However, as I passed the front porch I noticed, through the frosted glass, blue, yellow and red. I went inside and found a daffodil, geraniums and a primula in flower. The latter's blue/purple petals and its white-fringed yellow "eye" offered the vivid and vivacious colours that I craved, and so I took this close-up image. No doubt there will be further dull, dank weather, frosts, and maybe the odd light fall of snow, but today I'm not thinking about that, I've got my eye on spring.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1 second
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On