Say it with flowers...and light

Photography has been a steep learning curve for me, some things I've learned by making mistakes (a lot of them), some I have gleaned from the expertise of other photographers.  The main lesson I've learned?    Photography is all about light, so before you start snapping, THINK ABOUT THE LIGHT.  (Did you know that Einstein called photographers 'Light Monkeys'? I love that!).

So, questions to ask yourself: What kind of light is it? Where is it coming from?  How can you best use it for the effect you're after?  Do you need to add any more to it?  The angle and position you take an image from with regards to the light can make all the difference to the mood and feel of your shot.  If you want a shot to have an emotional resonance in the viewer you have to create the right mood with light and composition and processing, then if you're lucky the magic happens.

On to the flowers... 

To take this I had the vase of flowers next to the french doors on an overcast day, and shot into the light to give a luminous feel to the petals.  I could have used a reflector to bounce some light onto the darker side of the image, but I wanted contrasting shade.  I got my willing assistant to mist the flowers with water and shot at 1/1000 to catch the droplets, with an aperture of f/1.8 because I needed a lot of light to use that fast a shutter speed, and also because I wanted a shallow depth of field.  The ISO was 2500 which gives a touch of graininess that I like in monotone shots. 

Same flowers, different kettle of fish.  Much as I would love a macro lens I can't justify the price, so have to make do with a +4 filter and a +10 which screw onto the front of my 18-55 lens.  Liking the water droplets left from the first shot I wanted to feature them in more detail, and took this with the light coming from my right.  You need a greater depth of field for macros so I shot this at f/9 at 1/80 and an ISO of 3200.  It's all about trade offs - you narrow the aperture and you have to either slow the shutter speed down or up the ISO (or a combination of both) to get the same exposure.  Macros require a very steady hand or a tripod, oh and hold your breath when you press the shutter, the slightest movement will mean an out of focus shot.  You can also lock your camera's mirror up so that it doesn't cause unnecessary movement.

Another against the light shot...

And now heading toward the dark side... these were also taken with the macro filter but I wanted much grainier, impressionistic shots so underexposed them.

I always shoot in RAW and usually process in LightRoom.  I did have a play around with one of the above shots though and exported from LightRoom to Elements, added a texture, then imported it back to LightRoom and added a sepia tone.

Linking to:
Photogfriday
Photo Art Friday