Sit down

 Sit down, meditate and watch

Photographing flowers is a good reason to meditate. Try to find a place away from people (if possible), sit down and relax. Do not immediately grab the camera in your hands and do not start shooting immediately. Take your time! Feel the aromas, learn the structure, color and shapes.

Take a look around, try to find a few possible frames around you, without moving. It works for me! Visualize possible pictures and imagine how everything will look together at the end of the photo shoot.
Take a look around, try to find a few possible frames around you, without moving. It works for me! Visualize possible pictures and imagine how everything will look together at the end of the photo shoot.

Take a look around, try to find a few possible frames around you, without moving. It works for me! Visualize possible pictures and imagine how everything will look together at the end of the photo shoot.

Master your lens

Start exploring your lens capabilities. Study it to understand how to achieve different results. Forget about fully automatic programs and choose the one that allows you to control the iris. This is very important for flower photography.

Each lens has its own minimum focusing distance, so you need to find the distance at which you can come closest to the flower.

Compact cameras are good in that they allow you to come very close, so close that sometimes you can clearly photograph the entire part of the flower, placing it in full frame. Try to take such a picture, because sometimes, the smaller the better. After all, it is not necessary that the whole flower is in the frame to show people what kind of beauty you have observed.

My best color lens

People often associate macro lenses with flower photography. This is not entirely true. For example, my favorite color photograph lens is 100-400 mm, used on the long end of the zoom. I love the way it makes bokeh and easily separates the subject from everything else.

Me and my favorite floral photo lens
Me and my favorite “for work” floral photography lens.
Photo of my eldest son Miguel Antunes.

Most of the time I don’t use a tripod, so I need to use a slow shutter speed, which means, as a rule, to open the aperture. I try to stay low ISO, using mostly 100-400 ISO. And without leaving a flower in the center of the frame, I always try to photograph it “not in the forehead,” which allows me to choose the most spectacular angle. And that’s all that bothers me!

Isolate the flower

The picture of a white poppy in the poppies field (illustration below) will work only if you manage to create a background out of focus. The distance to the background from your main subject, as well as the effect of the lens aperture, is crucial. For all other purposes, telephoto lenses are more suitable.

Always check the aperture value that you use, and do not forget about the option to preview the depth of field (aperture trainer), if it is provided in your camera.
Always check the aperture value that you use, and do not forget about the option to preview the depth of field (aperture trainer), if it is provided in your camera.

It is such pictures, as I like, with a blurry background, you can get with a zoom lens of 100-400 mm.

Based on my own photographic experience, I’ll say that sometimes it is impossible to harmoniously combine the subject and background. Then there is nothing left but to give up and look for another flower, the shooting of which will meet all the conditions and the resulting image will satisfy the most picky tastes of the audience.

Using a contrasting background

Using a background that has its own color that is different from the main object helps to determine what is important in the picture, and if the “main character” is lost in the background, then you need to change the background to some other one.

Kneel or even lie on the ground – try to find all possible options for the relationship between the main object and the environment, because even the best flower will not be perceived without the correct background.
Kneel or even lie on the ground – try to find all possible options for the relationship between the main object and the environment, because even the best flower will not be perceived without the correct background.

Kneel or even lie on the ground – try to find all possible options for the relationship between the main object and the environment, because even the best flower will not be perceived without the correct background.