Getting the Most out of Spring Flowers

"Spring is sprung, the grass is ris, I wonder where the birdies is!" 

In other words, spring is here and the floral season is upon us. This blog post is about getting the most out of spring flowers looking at equipment, subject and composition. Close-up or macro photography is a fascinating sub-genre of nature photography that can give a lot of bang for the buck - you don't have to invest tons of money in expensive equipment to get some cracking results.

Pear Blossom in my Garden || Olympus 60 mm, f/8, 1/400 s, ISO 200

I'm not going to go into complicated things like focus stacking or special lighting here, this post is going to be directed at beginners and enthusiasts - how to get stunning close-ups of flowers in the spring. For those interested in the technical background, the official definition of a macro photograph is one where the subject takes up the same amount of space on the camera sensor as in real life; this is a 1:1 representation of the subject. Anything lower than this is simply a close-up, from around the 5:1 level we're into microscopic photography.

The Equipment

Every lens has a minimal focus distance - the closest distance at which you can focus on an object. On a normal lens this will be somewhere between 20-50 cm, which is too far to get great shots of small subjects. But there are a couple of relatively inexpensive ways of reducing this, allowing you to get closer to your subject and allowing you to fill your frame with the beauty that nature provides. No-one is going to be interested in a shot of flower blossoms that fill 2% of your photo. The aim here is to get up close and personal with nature.

Close-up Filter (l) and Extension Tubes

The first tool I bought for close-up photography was a +3 diopter close-up filter for my standard M. Zuiko 12-100 mm lens that I use on my Olympus camera. This effectively functions as a magnifying glass screwed onto the front of your lens and allowing you to reduce the minimal focal distance. Plus 3 diopter allows you to get significantly closer, but be prepared to dig a little into your pocket for this. I just looked up how much this filter costs on the Big River website and was shocked to see that you'll need to spend around € 100 for one of these attachments at the moment. I'm sure I didn't spend that much when I bought mine, but for a number of years, this was my go-to tool, always in my camera bag in the mountains.

Fill that Frame! Pansy close-up

The next tool I bought was a set of extension tubes. These are essentially hollow tubes that are inserted between the lens and the camera. They don't contain any glass and so won't affect the quality of your photo in any way. Often they will provide connectors that allow your camera to continue to communicate with the lens for purposes of setting the aperture and focus. The tubes also allow you to get much closer to your subject as above. A set of tubes will set you back about € 30 (+/-). The length of the tubes shouldn't be longer than the focal length of your lens, otherwise you won't be able to focus.

If you're really serious about close-up photography you might want to consider investing in a dedicated macro lens. I recently bought the Olympus f/2.8 60 mm macro lens. It's so small that I can take it with me everywhere. 

Normally, a tripod isn't necessary and a lot of macro photographers actually prefer not to use them. For standard shots I don't bother with one, only if I'm focus stacking or dealing with really small subjects.

Ladybird on Nettle Flower || Olympus 60 mm, f/8, 1/50 s, ISO 400 

All of the above can also be combined and I've already used the extension tubes to great effect with my macro lens allowing me to get some really close up shots of garden insects such as the ladybird above.

The Subject

Not every flower works well close-up. Some look better as a group from a distance, get too close and they can be boring. Complex flowers like dandelions and daisies can look fantastic close up. Others can look just bleurgh... Trial and error is the best approach here. Blossom is nearly always good close up, as are catkins and pussy willow. Experiment and you'll find what works best for you.

Dandelion Detail || Olympus 60 mm, f/8, 1/100 s, ISO 400

One of the beauties of macro photography is that you don't need to go far to find your subject. If you have a garden or even just a balcony, you more than have plenty of subjects to hand. Otherwise, head out to a local park, or even better a botanical garden.

One of the things to bear in mind with close-up photography is that the depth of field gets shallower the closer you are to a subject. This can be both a boon and a bane. It can really isolate the subject matter using sharp focus on your subject whilst throwing the background (and foreground) pleasingly out of focus, but if the depth of focus is too tight you'll struggle to get all of you subject in focus.

Down among the Daisies || Olympus 60 mm, f/5.6, 1/1250 s, ISO 200 

The depth of field (or depth of focus) describes the distance before and after the focal point that is acceptably in focus to the native eye. At it's shallowest, the subject is is in focus and the foreground and background are blurred. At it's broadest, focus will extend for most of the scene. In the shot of the daisies above, the depth of focus is restricted to the plane encompassing the yellow stamen of the central daisy flower. Everything in front of that and everything behind is out of focus.

Just like the exposure triangle (ISO/Shutter Speed/Aperture), there's a depth of field triangle:

Aperture - Focal Distance - Focal Length

The wider the aperture, the shorter the distance from the lens and the longer the lens, the shallower the depth of field:

	Shallower DoF	Wider DoF
Aperture	Wider (lower number)	Narrower (higher number)
Focal Distance	Closer	Further away
Focal Length	Longer	Shorter

The Composition

One of the great things about macro photography is it gives you to present your viewers with details that they perhaps hadn't consciously seen before giving rise to that cherished 'oh wow!' reaction. There are a couple of simple tricks to getting a cool close-up photo of flowers:

One of my favourites is to get low down to the flower, on your stomach in the grass if needs be (taking care not to squash other flowers and don't forget to check for ticks afterwards). This gives a much more interesting angle and view than looking straight down on the flowers, catching your shoes in frame. For greatest effect you need to be just above or below 90° - above allows a glimpse into the flower, below can be really effective against the light.

Down at Daisy Level || Olympus 60 mm, f/8, 1/200 s, ISO 200

Another thing that's cool to do is to put the flowers in their context. The shot here of the crocuses isn't a close-up, but it puts them nicely in their context in the Allgäu mountains. The best way of doing this is with a wide angle lens, making sure to get close to your subject matter so it takes up a significant part of the frame whilst allowing the background to play a supporting role.

Mountain Crocuses in Context || Olympus 18 mm, f/8, 1/320 s, ISO 200

With these primulas I included a bit of the stream to anchor them in their environment. Opening the aperture helped me to isolate the flowers and give the viewer a hint where they're supposed to look, important here given the lack of colour contrast between the flowers and the background.

Primulas at the Stream || Olympus 100 mm, f/4, 1/50 s, ISO 200

Where the flowers aren't necessarily very strong individually, back up a little and take them as a group - there's strength in numbers.

Crocus Field || Olympus 80 mm, f/8, 1/320 s, ISO 400

When shooting tree blossom, diagonal branches can support the composition. Watch out for distracting elements in the background and try to get your focus on the closest part of the blossom for the biggest impact.

Spring Blossom || Olympus 60 mm, f/8, 1/400 s, ISO 200

So, what's stopping you? Get out there, take some stunning spring photos and share them online!

Addendum: Light

I've just been out working in the garden and realised that I'd forgotten one of the most important aspects of photography: Light. Most of the time our instinct is (hopefully) to shoot with the light behind us or to the side. If we shoot into the light, often our subject will be a dark splodge and the background a washed-out blur. It hurts when I see people taking photos like this because I know they're going to turn out badly. Always know where the light's coming from and take it into account when you're taking photos.

The wonderful thing about flowers though is that they're often translucent - they let a certain amount of light through - as illustrated by this lovely photo by my friend Emma Marra. It also shows nicely the principle of shooting from slightly below the flowers and up towards the light. All the better if you can place something dark behind the flowers as here to let them really shine.

Emma's Tulips. Down low and against the light.

Feedback on the First Workshops

"Apparently, if you try to cram two years of learning into 4-6 hour 1-2-1 workshop, the participants can find it a bit too much. Who knew?"

The Old Gypsum Mill || Olympus f/5.6, 1/125 s, ISO 1250 

I’ve now run my first two workshops for volunteer guinea-pigs recruited from among my local friends on the understanding that they would give me in-depth feedback on the sessions in lieu of payment. We had two great afternoons, one hiking in the local mountains in less than perfect weather and one shooting flowers in a friend’s back garden. We had several “aha” moments as they learned things about their cameras that they didn’t know before and both have got some great shots out of the sessions. But what did I learn?

Over the last 18 months I’ve invested a lot of time in my photographic education. I’ve read books, I’ve watched a ton of videos and online courses on photography and post-processing and I’ve endeavoured to put a lot of it into practice in the field. I think that most people would agree with me when I say that I’ve come a long way photographically in that time. I’ve almost completely changed my approach to photographing and my philosophy of photography. A lot of things are now obvious that would have been a complete mystery to me even two years ago. I was an idiot to think that I could convey the significant parts of that learning in a single session, but that’s what I set out to do. Twice. In my defence, the second session was probably much better structured than the first. But I need to trim it down much further, or at least give the students more time to take each aspect of the teaching on board before progressing to the next.

Let’s take a look at the two sessions and try to assess what works and what doesn’t and look at how to build this into planning future workshops.

In the Pöllat River || Olympus f/11, 2 s, ISO 200

Session 1: In The Pöllat Gorge

The first session was held at one of my favourite local spots – the Pöllat gorge below the fabulous Neuschwanstein castle near Füssen. My student, a friend from the Munich choir that I sing with, had previously been a teacher – a huge plus for me, as this was someone who had first-hand experience of teaching methods and knew what he was talking about when it came to feedback. We’d had a chance to chat a little about photography on the way down in the car and I’d already sounded him out concerning what he wanted to learn.

The fun part about this session was that Andrew had a relatively clear idea of the images he wanted to get, but wasn’t always clear on how to achieve those images technically. This was definitely something I could help with.

Parking the car at the Tegelberg car park (much cheaper than parking in Hohenschwangau at the bottom of the castle), we trekked along the base of the mountain, the clouds lingering in the trees above us. Excellent opportunity for composition questions 1 and 2: (1) What catches your attention, and (2) what aspect of the subject do you want to emphasise or caricature? (thanks Joshua Cripps!)

Moody, Misty Forest || Olympus f/5, 1/200 s, ISO 500

Arriving at the bottom of the Pöllat gorge, I was dismayed to see that the gorgeous wooden mill race had been very badly damaged in the recent storms. I sincerely hope that they repair it using the original wood, since this has always been a complete eye-catcher and really strong element for photos here. As it was, the heavy flow was just gushing out of the broken end of the trellis into a mess of tree branches. Such a shame.

After we'd walked around the bottom of the gorge for a bit, scouting compositions, we went a few meters downstream where it was a little quieter so that we could chat about how to emphasise the water movement, leading into a discussion of long exposures and tripods. I'd established in advance that Andrew would be using the Nikon 18-55 mm kit lens and managed to source a cheap step-up ring of the right diameter so that he could use my filter system to create a series of shots with different exposures.

Shooting in the Pöllat || Huawei P30 Pro

Having had a good long session at the bottom of the gorge, we walked up through the shady forest, looking for other compositions. There are some nice shots to be had of the falls as well as some nice intimate forest landscapes - what my father calls my signature shots. The moss was particularly appealing 

Moss Micro Landscape || Olympus f/4, 1/8 s, ISO 200

At this point, I forgot a bit that I was supposed to be leading a workshop and got side-tracked by taking my own images - wrong of me I know, but too easy to do in the circumstances. In future, I'm really going to have to put my own shots in the background, unless they're to make a teaching point.

Carrying on up to the path between Neuschwanstein and the Marienbrücke, we were rewarded by a moody view over Hohenschwangau with the sun breaking through the clouds. An impossible shot for Andrew's camera, but no match for modern exposure bracketing. Once again, I was putting my own photos first. But come on, who would have said no to this:

God-Rays over Hohenschwangau || Olympus Exposure Bracketing

After waiting a while in vain to see whether the weather would provide us with anything better, we headed on up to the Marienbrücke, the bridge overlooking Neuschwanstein, to see whether the light would allow us to catch any useful shots. Andrew took quite a few from the bridge and we toyed with the concept of including some foreground in a shot in order to establish a bit of 3-dimensionality to the scene.

It was quite late by the time we got back to the car and we were both starving, so we looked for a suitable hostelry. Waiting for food, I had a chance to go through my workshop cheat-sheets with him. In my mind I had planned to shoot and then go over the theory in the hope that he would be more receptive to the concepts - a teaching style that we often use at work. In reality, it would have been helpful to look at them beforehand and then try to put some of it into practice in the field.

Session 2: A Munich Garden

For the second session I visited my friend in her garden in Munich. Because one of her primary photographic interests was flowers and because they have a beautiful flower garden, this really worked out nicely. The weather was definitely playing ball this time as well, which really helped. It had rained just before I got there, but we had a great 4 h in the garden in lovely late afternoon light, shooting anything and everything in sight.

This time we were able to sit down before we started and look at some of the concepts that help me focus on what makes a good photo. I was delighted that my friend was able to make the intuitive jumps from the things I was pointing out (more here) to compositional consequences. Once we'd got some of the basics out of the way, we were able to knuckle down to the two issues that she had highlighted approaching the workshop; exposure and focus.

Reach for the Sky || Olympus f/8, 1/250 s, ISO 200

After explaining the various ways in which cameras measure exposure and the shortcomings of assuming that everything is 50% grey, we looked around for potential examples. She has a beautiful honeysuckle growing up the side of the garage. Against the sky, most cameras will underexpose the subject to avoid an overly-bright image, leaving the subject quite dull. Exposure compensation to the rescue (once we'd found out how to in the manual).

Essence of Hydrangea || Olympus f/8, 1/40 s, ISO 200

Looking back, we should have spent a little while at least concentrating on exposure, but I was so excited with the progress that I was all for moving swiftly on to the next issue; focus. Once we figured out how to give her back the control over what the camera was focusing on we even got a chance to look at the concept of depth of field before switching over to her macro lens and fiddling about with focus magnification in a foreign camera system.

Old Wooden Chair || Olympus f/8

All in all we had a great afternoon/evening working through various technical and compositional aspects before I was gently told to stop - I'd passed on enough information and time was required to process and practice.

Lessons Learned

What Went Well

Let's start with what went well:

• The second workshop was much better structured than the first, working through the teaching materials and having a chance to put it all into practice.
• Knowing both locations well before the shoots was essential. Even then there were surprises, like the demolished mill race at the Pöllat gorge.
• Both locations were good and had some 'gimme' images where you couldn't really go wrong, whether Schloss Neuschwanstein or my friends gorgeous garden.
• Having a few toys to hand to play with worked well, such as the ND filters for the gorge and my tiny fish-eye lens as a demonstration of how aperture works.
• Getting the students to fill out a self-assessment form (below) well in advance of the workshop so that I could prepare a session to fit their individual needs worked really well.
• The handouts I had prepared turned out to be really good teaching aids.
• After the first workshop we sat down and went through a handful of the best images, looking at technique and possible tips. The offer is still out on the second workshop, but, life!

Challenges

• One of the time-consuming aspects of both workshops was becoming familiar with other peoples’ cameras. After 18 months with my Olympus I can operate it pretty much blindfolded. Previously I’d been using a Panasonic bridge camera and so had at least a working knowledge of the menu structure. My students had Nikon and Cannon cameras respectively and finding functions in the various menus took time. If students aren’t familiar with their cameras, it’s essential that they bring the manual with them. It was also challenging switching between a mirrorless camera with all of the associated ease of use and the more flighty DSLRs.
• The weather and, more importantly, the light during the first workshop was extremely challenging. But that’s life sometimes.
• It’s important to establish ahead of time which lenses your students are bringing to the workshop. I’m used to the flexibility of being able to choose between ultra-wide angle, long telephoto and everything in between. Students aren’t always going to be able to bring that variety to the workshop and the location needs to be planned accordingly.

What Didn’t Go So Well

• Looking back, although the first workshop was fun, setting out without covering at least the basic theory was a mistake. I was all gung-ho for the location and thought I could explain as we went. I couldn’t.
• After the first few shots, I also assumed that the student was doing ok and didn’t need as much help or feedback. In future I’ll have to be more proactive in checking in with them.

Looking Forward

Looking forward, I think I will have to offer either one or the other; either a photo safari or a photography workshop. It’s much easier to concentrate on teaching skills in a calmer environment with few distractions, where we can sit down, talk about the principles and then put them into action.

On the other hand, once someone has mastered the basics, it will still be fun to head out to the hills to look at how to put those skills into practice.

Fairy-Tale Neuschwanstein || Olympus f/4.5, 1/8 s, ISO 800

My Questionnaires

I've created two questionnaires, one to give me a feel for the student's needs, one for them to give me feedback on the workshop so that I can continue to improve as an instructor. I'll reproduce them here for anyone wanting to use and adapt. I've created these using Google docs, and the answers flow directly into a table. I'm a huge fan of Google docs as they allow me to access the information on the go using a variety of platforms.

Student Assessment Form

I ask a lot about my students because I really want to understand their needs and offer a tailor-made session. It also helps them to assess where they are and think a bit about the issues involved. I also ask them either in advance of - or during the session how they would define a "good" photo. Although a straightforward question, it really helps focus on the issues.

Student Feedback Form

Feeback is critical to the process of becoming a better instructor - which is a huge part of the process for me. Here's my Student Feedback Form

Staying Close to Home

Back in February I presciently posted an entry on the virtues of shooting on the doorstep. At the end of March it seems that it's all that we can do. Depending on where you live, this is either more or less of a convenience. I'm actually enjoying working from home. The boy-child made it home safely over a week ago and at the time of writing we're waiting on tenterhooks to see whether the girl-child manages to get on a flight back first thing tomorrow morning. No doubt none of us will sleep well tonight.

Snowbells || Olympus f5.6, 1/1250 s, ISO 200

Photographically speaking, it's a chance to sit back and take stock. I'm very fortunate to have a picturesque little wood at the bottom of the village that has a lot of potential, plus the garden is beginning to erupt, so there's a lot of macro work to do. I'd been looking for a chance to play about with some focus stacking and I guess now's my chance. On top of that, even though I'm working during the day, I now have a lot more free time in the evenings - I'm usually out at least three evenings a week and those meetings are either on hiatus or taking place online, freeing up time that would be spent travelling to and from Munich.

My Local Woods

There are other ways of investing time in my photographic skills, whether working on post-processing or making use of the plethora of online resources out there. Just this weekend I've come across another landscape photographer via the ON1 Photo Raw tutorials who has several online courses available. Hudson Henry's Approaching the Scene series on YouTube is going to keep me going for quite a while.

The Boy-Child is Back || Olympus f4, 1/640 s, ISO 200

A Walk in the Woods

It seems to me that there are two or three categories of photographers; there are those who know in the field precisely what makes a good image and will go out and take two or three photos and they will all be strong images. Thomas Heaton appears to fall into this category. Then there are those who recognise beauty when they see it but aren't sure how to capture it to make a good photo and end up taking lots of images, a few of which will be keepers. I like to think that I fall into this category. The third category, well, we won't talk about them, but we all know some people who fall into this group.

Here's a good example of what I mean. As we were walking through the woods, we cam across this fresh woodpile with the sun shining on the bright ends. My initial snap was just about OK, the second shot a bit better, but for the third I got down on my knees. The perspective is much better and although not a portfolio shot, I was quite happy with this one.

The Log Pile, 1st Attempt || Olympus f4.5, 1/125 s, ISO 200

The Log Pile, Better || Olympus f4, 1/125 s, ISO 200

Similarly, a few metres further down the track we caught this mist against the light. Again it took me a couple of attempts to capture the scene adequately. The first shot was my initial reaction to the mist - shooting from the hip so-to-speak. The second was after I'd had a minute or two to hunt down a proper composition.

Mist Rising I || Olympus f4.5 1/50 s, ISO 200

Mist Rising II || Olympus f4.5 1/100 s, ISO 200

Out of the woods we circled back towards home though open fields and lots of solitary tree goodness. There are a couple of stands of my favourites as well, the mighty silver birch. Here with a bit of Orton magic, just because.

Orton Birch || Olympus f4, 1/500 s, ISO 200

In the Back Garden

Of course there are some genres of photography where you have to take a lot of photos to get just a few good shots. Wildlife photography is certainly one of those genres, whether birds or, in this instance, bees. We have a young nectarine tree guesting with us at the moment (long story, it was a present from one of my choirs to one of our singers last year for his new house which is still being built, in the meantime we're looking after it). Sipping tea on the terrace yesterday afternoon after spending all day in the garden clearing up after the winter storms I noticed a couple of bees humming around it, collecting pollen and so I grabbed the camera to see whether I could catch them in the act.

Michael's Herrenbesuch Tree I || Olympus f11, 1/400 s, ISO 200

Michael's Herrenbesuch Tree II || Olympus f9, 1/320 s, ISO 200

The tree has beautiful pink blossoms and a lovely petal structure. I spent about 10 minutes yesterday trying to catch a sharp photo of the bees, took the SD card inside and plugged it into the PC, only to be disappointed. None of the bee shots had turned out sharp. It was then I remembered that I also have a Hoya +3 diopter screw-in lens for the front of my zoom. So it was on with the magnifier and back out to the nectarine, where I was able to get these shots. The magnifier lets me get much closer to the bees, but it does come at a cost of depth of field.

As with all animal portraits, the eyes have to be in focus for a decent photo. Almost got it...

Nearly, but not quite || Olympus f11, 1/320 s, ISO 200

And this was my shot of the day. Not 100% sharp, but I'm happy with this for a first attempt:

Bee on Blossom || Olympus f11, 1/400 s, ISO 200

Stay safe, stay well, and we'll catch you on the other side of this mess.