Five Awesome Tips For Amazing Flower Photography
I’m pro photographer Don Orkoskey. Here are some my most awesome tips for amazing flower photography. I’ve been photographing flower and nature of all types for over twenty years. I’ve also been teaching photography classes, including beginners photography, nature photography, macro photography, and more for over 15 years. I developed all of these tips from paying attention to what people struggle with the most. These are all tips that can help you immediately and dramatically improve your ability to take incredible photos of flowers.
Talking to my students who love to photograph flowers I’ve paid attention to what made the biggest impact for them. The results are my awesome tips for amazing flower photography.
1. CHOOSE YOUR LIGHT
Think like a photographer and learn how to choose your light. Choose the type of sunlight you’re taking flower photos in by the way that light will make your flowers look. Lighting is everything to photography so here is some information that will help you learn to read light like a professional photographer.
HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR LIGHT
The time of day and weather conditions are the biggest factors in how to choose your light. Overcast days give us soft light, as does shade. Bright sunny days where we can see deep crisply outlined shadows give us harsh light that can may overpowering in the highlights and leave the shadows way too dark. Both types of light have their place in flower photography but select the one that best fits the mood you’re going for.
SOFT LIGHT
Overcast days give you soft light. This is very even light that wraps around the flowers you’re photographing. This type of light is easiest to take pictures of flowers in. It makes delicate flowers look more delicate. These light conditions allow your camera to more easily see the detail in everything and to get the exposure correct. If you like this softer, possibly even dreamy look then go out on overcast days to take flower photos.
Sadly we can’t control the weather so if you’re looking for soft light on a bright sunny day head for the shade and photograph flowers that are not in direct sunlight. Choosing the right time of day will help a lot with this. Shadows are longest early and late in the day. Too, even on really sunny days the light will be a little softer early and late in the day. It will also be warmer which is something else to consider.
Most flowers grow best when they get a lot of sun so to find flowers that are in shade try a west facing slope with a lot of trees around them first thing in the morning. Alternatively look for an east facing slope later in the day. Just remember that if it’s very hot flowers can wilt or look a bit sad in the late afternoon. This is why mornings are ideal times to photograph flowers.
HARD LIGHT
While some flowers look their best when photographed in soft and even light some look better when their shadows are crisper. Some flowers lend themselves well to bright sun and rich deep shadows — sunflowers for example.
Additionally, pollinators, including bees and butterflies, are more active on sunny days and the extra light makes it easier to photograph them with settings that will freeze their motion. Just like with soft lit photos it’s still a good idea to go out in the morning before it’s too hot both for yourself and the flowers. This will also put the sun at a lower angle rather than right overhead which should help you out even more.
The trick to photographing flowers in hard light is to pay attention to how much contrast there is and to what is important. Contrast is the amount of difference between the brightest and darkest parts of our photo. If our flower is in direct sun but the background is dark shade then our camera might try to split the difference.
The results will be a flower that looks too bright and lacking in color. The background may also look bad. As long as you don’t care about what is in the background you can tell your camera to underexpose the photo which will make the entire thing darker, making our flower the color we want and setting it up against a nice dark black background. This will really make your picture pop!
2. UNDEREXPOSE
When we slightly underexpose our photos the colors become richer and more saturated. We’ll also make sure to capture all of the details in the highlights.
This flower photography tip works no matter what type of camera you have — even just a smartphone. The easiest way to do this is with exposure compensation. Your camera will try to give you the biggest range of details often leaving brightly lit subjects too bright and will try to find details in dark background that we may not care about. By using exposure compensation we can tell the camera to make it just a bit darker. The background will fall into black and our subject will regain some color and won’t look so bright.
HOW TO UNDEREXPOSE
Here is how to underexpose your photos to get really vivid saturated colors in your flower photography. If you’re using a phone long-press on the screen where you want it to focus. This will bring up what’s called auto-exposure/auto-focus lock (AE/AF). AE/AF lock will show you a shape, a circle or square with a little slider next to it. Use that slider to make the photo a bit darker.
If you’ve got a camera other than a phone you should google your camera model and the term “exposure compensation”. Many DSLRs or mirrorless cameras have a small button with [+/-] on it which is your exposure compensation button. Hold that down and spin one of the rotating dials, most likely the one closest to the shutter (but not always) to change your exposure. Looking at your viewfinder or screen you should see a +/- symbol appear or a bar that shows your exposure that will move towards the minus side.
You don’t have to underexpose your photo very much. Look for it to be between 1/3rd to 1. Further than that and it will likely be too dark. If you run into any problems contact me, as I’m always willing to help.
You can see in the photo below that I’ve slightly exaggerated this underexposure. It feels like a little too much but you can see how richer and more saturated the colors look. Plus you can see how that dark background really helps the flower to stand out. All of that is from underexposing the photo just a little bit. Just remember, the more light the more washed out the colors will be. When we use a slight underexposure it gives us deep rich colors.
3. GET CLOSER
Get closer to your subject. This is a great photography tip for everything, not just flower photography. When you get closer you eliminate stuff that the viewer doesn’t need to see, things that are distracting, and things that just don’t add to the photo. You’ll also end up with a shallower depth of field (the stuff that appears to be in focus) meaning our background will be more blurry allowing your photos to have a greater sense of depth and dimensionality. A shallow depth of field will also help focus the viewer’s attention on your subject rather than being distracted by the background.
Our focus is one limiting factor to how close we can get. We can only focus on objects at a certain distance before we’re too close and we can’t focus any further. You may rarely encounter this issue but if you do consider thinking about macro photography gear. Here is a guide I put together for how to take macro photos without a macro lens.
What often limits how close we get is our brain telling us that we’re “good enough” or close enough. We have this sense that we’re as close as we need to be, that we should maintain a safe distance. While this is true for staying healthy in a pandemic it doesn’t apply to flower photography. By being conscious of our internal feeling of a “safe distance” we can push ourselves to get closer and reep the rewards.
Bonus: you don’t always have to show the entire subject for people to know what it is. We don’t need to see a stem to understand that it’s a flower. We don’t need to see the entire apple to know what it is. So don’t be afraid to get in close. You can always take a safe photo then go in for the close up.
Take this next photo as an example. We can still very much tell that this is a flower even without seeing all of the petals. Don’t be afraid to get really close — you’ll find yourself loving the results when you do!
4. LOOK FOR ODD NUMBERS
Getting close is great but sometimes we want to take photos of groups of flowers or we’re photographing really small flowers in umbels or other tight collections. When we do so it’s best to look for odd numbers of flowers to include in your photo. One, three, or five flowers allows our eye to travel all around the subject easier than even numbers do. Once we get to seven or nine flowers it becomes less important. Beyond that the idea of repetition takes over. Once it becomes less about the individual flowers we don’t need to pay attention to this one.
Using only odd numbers in your flower photography is a rule you can of course break. This tip is just to help the viewer move around the frame easier. With even numbers we often feel unsure of where to look. That said, if you can frame two flowers in a way that you’re happy with it go for it!
Odd numbers work because of how we unconsciously see geometry in photos. We see triangles when we have odd numbers of subjects to look at. Our eyes move about the photo from flower to flower in a more predictable way.
5. CHANGE YOUR ANGLE
If you’re able to get low to the ground then you can change your angle and photography flowers from their height. This is a small tip that goes big. When we change the way we look at anything it invites a much bigger reaction. Most of the time we’re standing straight up when we look at flowers so taking a photo of a flower where it looks giant because we’ve positioned our camera below it will really grab people’s attention.
Let’s look at the example below. Not only is this not the angle we typically look at such flowers from but by getting low we also can capture this magical background. My camera is close to the flowers. I used a shallow depth of field and there are an odd number of them. With the low angle we get a look at these flowers which we don’t usually get in real life. The added bonus here are the complementary colors. The purple in the lower right helps the yellow to really stand out. Additionally the green and purple help the yellow to pop out at us which is a special little color theory trick — warm colors come towards us while cool colors recede.
Bonus Tip for Awesome Flower Photos
One way to ensure that you get the light that you want is to invest in a convertible reflector. Reflectors are inexpensive photography tools. They come in a variety of sizes, don’t weigh a lot, and fold up easily. A convertible reflector will often have a white translucent inside and a cover with silver and gold reflective material. You can use this to bounce light up at the flowers you’re photographing. You can also remove the cover and use the translucent white to shade the flowers in harsh light. Some light will still get through but it will be softer and more even.
Want more tips and photography info?
Let me know what you think and visit my website at WDOphoto.com for more photography tips and advice. Have you tried these tips for flower photography or any others that you found improved your work? Do you have a favorite flower photography tip that you want to share? Let me know with the form on my website’s contact page. Also be sure to check out my nature photography galleries over on Zenfolio.