Garden Photography

Yellow Rose in a Country Garden

This weekend I went on a Garden Photography Workshop at Barnsdale Gardens. I didn’t really know what to expect from either the course or the gardens. The day also clouded over somewhat and the light was a little flat. I know I need to improve both my composition and technique, but I think that this is a matter of practice and looking at my photos and other people’s and deciding what works, what doesn’t and why.

I did take a few things away from the course, two of them are illustrated in the above photo. Firstly, a picture of a flower does not have to be a stunning close up macro or portrait shot, if it is put into context, a more distant shot can be just as effective, this rose was in front of a set of table and chairs. Unfortunately I can’t take all of the credit as the instructor did point the shot out to us.

Secondly, taking garden photos doesn’t always require a small aperture and large depth of field. This photo was taken (ISO 100) with my 100mm macro lens, handheld at 1/400secs (the sun came out for a moment) and an amazingly large aperture of f/3.2.