I Grew A Hobby During The Pandemic
The pandemic has changed our lives in a way that we hadn’t imagined before. While this has restricted our travelling opportunities, it has opened the door for some of us to pick up and grow a new hobby. More often than not, I have found myself photographing flowers, and I learned a lot as I developed this new hobby. In this post, I’ll go over some of the things that I learned along the way.
My Checklist for Maximum Sharpness. Here are a few things I do to make sure I get the sharpest photo of the flower that I’m photographing.
Manual Focus with Macro Lens. Almost every time I photograph flowers, I end up using my macro lens, because I really like the details it captures. However, the autofocusing system doesn’t really work when my camera is so close to the subject, and I end up focusing manually every time.
Tripod. I use a tripod to make sure that my composition and my areas of interest remain unchanged while I photograph.
Ten Second Timer. I use the longest available timer in my camera, ten seconds, because it allows the camera to stabilize once I press the shutter to take the photo.
Waiting Game. When I’m outdoors, I often need to wait for a window of zero wind, when I can focus on the flower and take the photo. This is because wind can cause motion blur in the flower and it can ruin the image. This is usually a repetitive process and can take up some time. In case of indoors, I like to make sure that the floor isn’t vibrating because of other’s movements. If I’m in a shared place, I like to wake up earlier than others to take the photo. I really want to emphasize on this part — macro photography is really delicate, and any kind of movement usually ends up ruining the photo. For this reason, I take lots of photos of the same composition, so that I can pick and choose the best one.
Lighting. I like to work with soft, natural light, because that’s the kind of light that will make the flowers look their absolute best. I prefer big lighting sources, because smaller sources can create harsh, unwanted shadows. Most of my flower images are taken in the morning light, beside a door or a window connected with the outside world. Sometimes I use a reflector to create a secondary light source. I don’t have professional reflectors, but I’ve found that Aluminium foils could be such a blessing!
I find it amazing how lights can change the mood of an image. Here are three images of a Begonia flower I took at exact same camera settings, within seconds of each other. The only difference is the way I held the Aluminium foil on the right side of this flower. First image was taken without any reflective foil, which creates a noticeable shadow. On the second image, I held the foil close to the flower, and the shadows are slightly eliminated. On the third image, I rotated the foil at a different angle, which got rid of most of the shadow.
Foreground & Background. I’ve written more about it in my blog on foreground and background.
A Partial Flower. While I’m composing an image, I might exclude certain parts of the flower. I have found that this approach can create a really strong image.
For me, an image of a partial flower, where the left is up to the viewer for their imagination, can create a more compelling image.
If you’ve made it this far in the post, I congratulate you. I hope you can take some time to photograph something that attracts you, and I look forward to seeing your work. Cheers!