Spider Chrysanthemum

White chrysanthemum

Fall officially started last month, and I haven’t had much time to write anything for Focal Plane since the end of summer. Actually, not having the time isn’t quite true. My time has been spent in other ways, including doing quite a bit of nothing. I suppose most people feel overwhelmed occasionally. I sometimes find that when I have too much to do, it’s easier to just put it all out of my mind and do nothing. Plus, I’ve been sick with the flu for about a week and a half and just haven’t had the mental energy to think, let alone write coherently.

Well, the rainy weather has finally let up and the flu bugs have left me for another home, so I’ve finally had some time to go back through my photographs for some ideas to jump-start some new art and writing projects. Sometimes you just have to go through the motions even if you don’t feel inspired, you know? The physical work of typing sometimes is enough to get ideas moving. Not flowing, exactly: just sort of creaking along at a glacier’s pace. But that can be enough. Even a slow-moving glacier eventually carves out the whole valley! Anyway, on to the featured picture.

This spider chrysanthemum was one of the first studio photos I took. It’s lit by professional overhead lighting, but a single strong light source at least three or four feet overhead would give a very similar look. If you want to replicate the lighting, make sure you only have one light source: all windows and doors should be shut or covered, and any other lights turned off. You will still need the flash on your camera to help bring out the detail in the petals. This technique is called fill flash, because you use the flash to help fill in the details in the darker parts of the scene. If you don’t use a flash, the upper part of the flower will be lit but the lower part will be too shadowy for you to see detail, and you can’t coax them out in a photo editing program, either, because they won’t be there. The detail has to be there when you take the picture. Start with a good photo before you try to do photo editing. Remember: garbage in, garbage out.

Here, the flower is simply resting on its side on a black cloth, and the camera is placed level with the table about three feet away. I don’t remember the lens I used, but it was most likely in the 75mm range. If you have a macro lens, this is the place to use it. See how the pressure of the flower resting on the table creates an almost triangular shape to the flower? Notice how the contrast of the petals at the top (which are fanned out so nicely) with the petals at the bottom (which are pressed together) creates a dynamism to the photo. There isn’t the traditional symmetry here that you would expect from a straightforward flower shot.

When you’re photographing familiar objects, try placing them in unusual positions. Most people would expect a flower in a vase, photographed from the side. But a head-on shot of a flower gives a whole different image, and placing the flower so that light and shadow give it an unusual shape adds another dimension to the image. It’s this play of light and shadow that gives the photograph its appeal, so don’t be afraid to try unusual settings for your subjects.

Woodland Flowers

Photographing white flowers can be difficult because it is easy to overexpose the image and end up with a washed-out, featureless shape. One way to get around the problem is to bracket your shots.

Bracketing means that you take several pictures of the same flowers, with different exposure times for each frame. Some you will overexpose, and some you will underexpose. But you should be able to end up with one that’s “just right!” But where do you start?

Begin by familiarizing yourself with your camera’s built-in meter system. Most SLRs and even the most basic digital point-and-shoot cameras have program modes for aperture priority, speed priority, and manual modes. Aperture priority means that you set the aperture and the camera will set itself for the best speed for that lens opening. Speed priority means you set the speed and the camera will change the lens aperture to get the best image possible for that speed setting. In manual mode, you fly solo, setting both aperture and speed yourself with no help from the camera. While this can be confusing for a beginning photographer, it also allows you the most creative freedom. But save that thought: for now, let’s get back to the white woodland flowers.

I wanted to capture the detail in the center of the flowers, while keeping the fern leaf from getting too dark. Some definition in the background would be nice, but it’s not necessary. The background could go completely out of focus and this might improve the image, because it would help declutter the image. Too many competing elements can make an image less interesting, because the eye wanders over the frame and there’s no clear-cut subject of the photograph.

In this case, I wanted to bracket to make sure that I got the shot. I started by going with aperture priority so I could control how much of the image was in focus. By choosing a small f-stop, the stamens of the flowers would remain nice and sharp, and I could keep the petals and fern leaf in focus, too. Aperture priority means that the camera selects the speed, so this would give me a starting point to bracket from.

I took one frame at the aperture priority setting, noting the speed that the camera had used. Then I switched the camera to manual settings. Using the same aperture, I changed my speed settings and took one frame at a shorter exposure time, and one at a longer exposure time than what the aperture priority program used. This is how to bracket: now I had three frames of the same flowers, with three different exposures. Sure enough, one turned out very dark, while one was light. This is the middle frame, which is the one the camera picked.

It doesn’t always work that way, though — the camera doesn’t know what results you are trying to achieve, and the program modes often just end up being a compromise between too light and too dark. Sometimes images work best when they’re slightly dark, so don’t be too quick to throw away your images before you have a chance to really look at them.

Is it Spring Yet?

Here in suburban Maryland, the weather hasn’t been able to make up its mind what season it wants to be. For the better part of the last two months we’ve had quite a few days with temperatures in the mid-30s, which is pretty cold for this area. It warmed up to 70 for one day, then went back down to the 40s the next. You need to carry clothes for every season, because you’ll need them all in the course of the day!

Our crocus have come up and are blooming. This photo is from last year, because I haven’t done much photography yet this year, and the crocus we have are already fading. I had to dig some of them up for the house work last fall and didn’t get around to re-planting them. Still, the ones that I didn’t dig up are finding nice sunny spots for themselves and blooming away. They’ve even escaped from their flower bed and are free-ranging in the front yard. Unfortunately, they get stepped on by the mailman. There’s nothing sadder looking than a squished crocus.

Perseverance

One of the things that really bothered me when we began remodeling our house was losing some of the plants that we really liked. I could care less about the cherry tree that kept regrowing each time we cut it back, and I certainly had nothing but hard feelings for the poison ivy that was creeping down the basement stairwell. It felt like I was giving up on the things that I liked, but there simply wasn’t time to dig up and relocate all of the plants we wanted to save — the butterfly bush, a Carolina Allspice bush, a hop plant, and about a hundred wonderful little lily of the valley flowers in shades of white and pink.

Ben made an effort to dig up the butterfly bush that had taken residence outside of one of the windows on the north side of the house. The bush was only a couple of years old, and had appeared on its own one summer. It had taken root from seeds from another butterfly bush that we had planted years ago in another part of the yard. The old bush wasn’t doing too well because it was in a shady area of the yard, but this new plant was in direct sunlight, and its trunk was at least three inches in diameter. However, the root system was buried in dirt that had the consistency of concrete. That Saturday, the temperature was about 98 degrees and after about 10 minutes, Ben announced that it would simply be easier to purchase a new bush after the construction was done. We decided that would apply to about everything else, too.

In the last two months, all the plants that were in the small garden at the front of the house and those along the northern side have been cut down, trampled by men and machinery, crunched under roofing beams and drywall and toolboxes, and trampled some more. The grass has long since receded from the front yard, no doubt heading for better pastureland.

It seems that we gave up too soon on these plants. The butterfly bush has staged a comeback, and a multitude of branches are springing out of the old trunk. It’s only about a foot and a half tall at this point, but it’s a vigorous grower — it’s only taken about two or three weeks to get this big. We might still have to move the plant out from the porch a little, but now at least we have the time to soak the ground and dig up the plant when it goes dormant in the late fall. The best part is going to be when the plant blooms next year, because those fragrant purple flowers are going to be right off our new porch, right where we can see and smell them. And the butterflies are going to be there, too.