Camassia

[carregwen]

From the garden. All images are stacked with Helicon. Both shot with canon 50D and Sigma 105mm macro lens. f/13, 1/125s, studio lights. The white backdrop is an A1 size piece of art-board. The studio light was in front, and the backlight came from daylight in a north-facing window.



This is a close-up of just one of the flowers, which are about 1inch across.



And this one is a 150% blow-up of the central area of shot #1 to show the detail.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Rob,

These are what I'd call "reference text book" quality, meaning you should get someone to write a book (on plants obviously) and you can do the photos.

Great work,

[rick55]

These are fantastic, Rob! Dave's right, they're at least textbook quality, or better. Since your wife is a botanist, maybe you can collaborate on it.

Cheers,
Rick

[CNelson]

Beautiful! The non-distracting background really helps.

Chuck

[bleys]

beautiful shots!

[ScoutR]

WOW!! Not only textbook quality, beautiful works of art.

[Yan Zhang]

I agree with others' opinions: these are very nice images. I am a bit surprised that the technique behind these images seems quite simple.

[carregwen]

I agree with others' opinions: these are very nice images. I am a bit surprised that the technique behind these images seems quite simple.

The technique is really quite simple. Flowers are transluscent, especially the petal areas, so by putting a light behind them as well as one in front you get a more detailed view. It can also produce a very ethereal look, as it has done here. These shots were extremely easy to do, I just put the flower in water in a small vase and stood it on a white card with the window behind (north-facing is better). The front was lit by just one closely positioned studio light with a large soft-box which made the light very soft and diffuse. The principle here is the same as I did in this shot Improvisation on a hot sunny day which was shot outdoors - light in front and behind. The only tricky part is getting the light balanced so it looks good overall. I normally use a light meter for the studio light, but you could do it by trial and error in a few shots to get it right.

[carregwen]

Hi Rob,

These are what I'd call "reference text book" quality, meaning you should get someone to write a book (on plants obviously) and you can do the photos.

Great work,

I thought they didn't actually look like photographs - more like painted images. I think it's the quality and nature of the light doing that.

Thanks for the thought, but I think Clive Nicols has it stitched up (he does most of the flashy mag shots for the RHS etc) http://www.clivenichols.com/