Gardening
Sep, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This gorgeous peony grows in my flower garden perennially. I am a fairly new, self-taught photographer, so I take advantage of my surroundings to learn new techniques. I am never too far away from my camera at any point of the day. You never know when a must have photo will appear.Time
This was very much a right place at the right time photo. I has been reading up the "golden hour" of light. That hour or so just before sundown. Our home faces west so I focused on the flowers out front, trying to capture that natural, golden light. I was so happy with the way the shadows on the leaves lead the flower to look like it is coming right out of the image. It gave the photo a 3D effect.Lighting
I try to use natural lighting as much as possible. This photo captured my first attempts with golden hour lighting. This quickly became my favorite time of day to take photos.Equipment
This photo was captured using a Nikon D3200 camera and a 55-200 Nikon lens. While I've used a tripod during many of my shoots, this one was done free standing.Inspiration
My mom is a beautiful gardener and she loves close up photos of flowers. The inspiration was to create something worthy to frame and give her as a gift. After capturing this photo, I was drawn into the intricacy of macro photography with flowers. To capture the busy bee and the resting butterfly makes them all the more interesting to work on.Editing
There wasn't any post-processing on this photograph.In my camera bag
I never set out on a new photography adventure without my Nikon D3200 camera with a 55-200 lens and my Nikon D90 with a 17-105 lens. My full support Nikon hiking backpack is fantastic. It has a waterproof layer to protect my equipment when required. My Gorilla Tripod is always strapped onto my backpack and my monopod in hand. My latest piece of must-have equipment is a set of macro tubes. They are amazing when beach-walking and conversing through gardens.Feedback
A piece of advice I give every young photographer is to practice, try new levels of white balance and ISO. Take your camera off Automatic and get to know it by trial and error. Have patience and don't get frustrated when the photo starts to be come a challenge. Take your camera back to the basic settings, take a deep breath and start over. Most importantly, enjoy what you do, find your passion and go after it. Everyone has a different opinion of what beautiful art is. When you think something is beautiful and interesting and challenging take the photo, you won't regret it.
