When taking pictures of flowers, sometimes you can make your images really stand out by adding a little extra detail. I find a little water from a mist spray can make all the difference to the image as you can see in this example. The water droplets add texture that adds depth to the image.

Small but beautiful

Capturing the beauty of flowers can be very rewarding. The good thing about flowers is they tend not to move, so you can take all the time that you need to really work on getting that perfect image. This shot was taken in daylight, using a macro ring between my lens and my camera body (Cheap alternative to a macro lens). The camera on a tripod, I was using off camera flash but you could equally use on camera flash. Again, like some of my other projects, using a high shutter speed and a large F-stop to prevent the light having time to bounce back from the background, making the background appear completely black. This image was taken at 1/250 F22 and ISO 64 using high speed flash.

Forget me not

This shot of a tiny Forget me not, like the shot above, was taken in broad daylight, with a high powered flash to kid the camera into believing it was dark.. Basically the flash does not have time to bounce back off the background to reflect enough light with the high f stop and fast shutter. The water droplets, like the shot above, really add depth to the image and make this such an elegant shot.

High Key shot

My last few images in this feature were also taken indoors. These lilies appear to jump out of the background because of the 'High Key' shot. Taken against a white wall, this image was made possible with some off camera flash to over expose the white wall while giving some light to the flowers. Three flashes were used, one on full power to over expose the wall while the other two on half power lighting the subject (flowers) from each side to reduce any possible shadows.

Taken at 1/125 and F4 with and ISO of 64 this image really emphasises the greens and pinks of the lilies while removing any hard lines between the edges of the subject and the background. The High Key effect really makes the flowers reach off the page in this shot.

High Key shot with extra!

Adding some additional interest with this hair grip butterfly helps this shot to tell a story.

Single lily in bloom

My final shot is a single lily, this time against a black backdrop, removing all of the other distractions from the head of the lily itself to really focus in on the vibrancy of the flower. This shot was taken at 1/20 sec f22 and ISO64.