Simplicity

By Varina Patel,on January 24th,2012

I have always loved snow drops because they bloom sometime in February –when there is still snow on the ground. For me,they are the very first sign of Spring –and when I see them,I feel lighter somehow. It’s such a relief to see these delicate beauties appear after months of shoveling snow in freezing weather,and searching for sun under heavily overcast skies.

It’s easy to capture an image like this…even without fancy equipment.

I brought a single flower into the house and used a clothespin to hold it upright on a small stool. I placed a sheet of white paper behind it,making sure that the sunlight from a nearby window illuminated the paper. I used a small reflector (a sheet of shiny poster board would do…or even a piece of glossy photo paper) to reflect light from the window back onto my pretty subject.

I used a tripod to hold my camera steady,and I took several shots from different angles…making sure that my background was far enough away from my flower that the soft textures were completely blurred out. I chose an aperture of f8 in order to make sure I had enough depth of field to get the whole flower in focus.

Processing was very easy. I selected Photoshop’s default “daylight”white balance,and then brightened up the image just slightly to keep those whites as bright as possible –without blowing the highlights. I also removed a few tiny specks of dirt with the clone tool.

Flower portraits can be a lot of fun –especially when you are shooting the very first flowers of Spring!