At the Garden....

[Sailorstu]

I was recently confronted with a grey overcast day and had heard that this could be the ideal conditions for photographing flowers. So I packed up and went to a local garden to play with depth of field and capture some of the beautiful flowers. Really a challenge to think about desired composition. C&C welcome.
#1 - The Garden Guard (bird bath)

#2 - Pink Bee Balm

#3 - Poppies

[Geoff F]

Flower portraits are certainly challenging subjects Stu.

Last year I opted for improving my flower photography as my Project 52 Challenge, with at least one outdoor botanical subject each week. Very quickly I realised I didn't know as much as I thought I did about this subject. Flowers need as much care as formal portraits of people and the same concerns need attention; chiefly, lighting, subject make up and background.

Always use a tripod. Besides preventing any shake problems this will give you more time to carefully study the scene through your viewfinder before even thinking about pressing the shutter.

Some 'gardening' will often be necessary to place your subject in the best position and exclude any unwanted items in the foreground/background. My flower photography equipment always includes a pair of secateurs or sharp knife. Alternatively, it is often possible to simply bend a stem temporarily out of the camera view.

Many flower scenes cannot be adequately captured in the limited focus depth of a single shot; so either focus stacking of two or more shots will be required or carefully focus on the desired area, usually the closest point, then allow the remainder to gradually fade into the distance. Manual focusing is best; auto focusing often chooses the wrong spot.

So regarding these images.

You are bound to have problems with the first scene where the statue's face is in shadow from its 'hat'. Difficult to avoid though without some form of additional 'lighting'. Focusing on the statue, with limited focus depth, means having a lot of area which is out of focus unless you stack multiple shots. I find this scene is creating a lot of background distraction so I would crop differently to concentrate solely on the intended subject.

The second and third images also have too much out of focus and rather bright background areas so I would also crop these tighter to the target area. Your main subject exposure is OK but I would selectively tone down the highlights on some background areas.

[Sailorstu]

Thanks for the thorough feedback Geoff, I'll try out your suggestions. Thanks for this helpful advice.