belugaleuca

Candy Swirl Orchid

Canon EOS REBEL T3

settings

Aperture f/5.6 ISO 1600 Shutter 1/4000 Focal Length 109/1

upload_date

May, 2018

Views

Likes

Awards

Peer Award

Absolute Masterpiece

Superb Composition

Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo in the teaching greenhouse at my workplace. There is a beautiful orchid wall with a variety of colourful orchids and spanish moss. When they are in full bloom it is just breathtaking - I wanted to capture some of that beauty.

Time

Every day the orchid wall gets misted to keep the humidity up. I had walked in just after a misting, leaving a lovely layer of fresh droplets on the petals and leaves.

Lighting

The light was purely from the sun, streaming in from the glass roof. It was a sunny but slightly overcast day if I recall correctly.

Equipment

Canon Rebel T3 with a basic macro lens zoomed in to achieve the blurred background effect.

Inspiration

The orchid flowers sometimes appear to have personalities to me - On this day I tried to take "portraits" of the flowers and not just a biological photograph.

Editing

I cropped this image to draw the eye to the water droplet hanging off the left orchid, and make the orchids feel as if they were two friends.

In my camera bag

I have a small camera bag with the default lens, a macro lens, and a prime lens. It's portable and encourages me to take my camera out regularly for unexpected opportunities.

Feedback

Having a beautiful subject definitely helps in floral photography! I think the importance of composing your image cannot be overstated. Pay attention to the background colour, the balance between light and shadow, and the direction the flowers heads are facing as they act just like a human face in directing your eye and attention. If you use a macro lens with a very small depth of focus, I would suggest using manual focus so you can make a conscious decision of the point of focus. To tie it all together, treat the image like a portraiture, and think of what personality or traits you want to bring out of the flower as you compose the image. Finally, a good crop is usually necessary to draw the eye to the focal point (as during the shoot you can focus more on flower position, camera angle and background colour).

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belugaleuca

belugaleuca

Candy Swirl Orchid

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow belugaleuca

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