Orchids

[Pohled]

Hello,

First of all, I'd like to give some credit to rob marshall and his Close to death? thread of orchids, which gave me some motivation to take pictures of those that we have here at home.

I was afraid of taking off the iron stick and damage the flower, what would take me to a eternal mommy-prohibition of shooting her flowers But I'll see if I get a maternal license for this next time


#1 I tried the most to put the background out of focus


#2 Background here is a sheet of paper


Thank you for viewing and commenting.

[Diane Darlow]

What beautiful orchids. They always remind me of dances and teenage years. I'm doing a study on flowers too and feel frustrated that they just dont want to face the way that would be most photogenic, and I am even too shy to post them, so I am actually being quite cheeky giving you my opinion. However -
I prefer the second photo, and would personally have liked to see a darker plain background so that the colours were more dramatic. I might have tried to crop it more, showing an interesting part of the main orchid, or I would have left the whole main orchid in (not cutting off the one petal.)

[rob marshall]

First of all, I'd like to give some credit to rob marshall and his Close to death? thread of orchids, which gave me some motivation to take pictures of those that we have here at home.

I was afraid of taking off the iron stick and damage the flower, what would take me to a eternal mommy-prohibition of shooting her flowers But I'll see if I get a maternal license for this next time

There's more to photographing these than just the camera work. You have to be prepared to risk your life. The reason mine is so nicely composed is that I did take the support stake out (in other words it was accidental). Immediate problem of course is that the flower heads start to drop, and it's a desperate rush to get it shot before it does break. Meanwhile the edgy sounds of the Head Gardener downstairs sharpening knives in the kitchen...

If you don't have flash units try placing the flower in a north-facing window and place a piece of black art-board (it's cheap) behind to act as a back-drop. Or even just pin up an A3 sheet of black paper. Put the camera on your tripod and use f/16. If it's a longish exposure use the auto-timer so you don't shake the camera. You can get very good results using this method, and it's cheap.

[Pohled]

Hi,
Thank you both!
Diane, I agree with you, I could have framed it better. I'll be more careful next time.

Rob, ah, I think that I cannot run the risk of taking the support stake out at the moment =D. As for the aperture, f/16, I don't have that possibility with my compact camera, but I'll try to use a longer exposure anyway. My mother considered the second one "too artificial", perhaps because she knows very well the "natural" enviroment of the plant. I see if I get some thing black too, but I guess that some more light colours would be good to be more vivid. And I need to fine a thing to hang the paper, on the picture above I had to held the camera with one hand and the sheet of the paper with another one, too hard. =D

Well, soon or later we'll have another season of orchids here