Photographing your garden - includes related article on photogenic flowers

Flower & Garden Magazine, August-Sept, 1993 by Pam Waterman, Molly Dean

There are many valid reasons for venturing into the garden with a camera instead of a trowel. Perhaps you would like to have a permanent record of your gardening triumphs? Maybe you would like to share your garden with faraway friends? Or how about creating a Christmas card picture of your prettiest flowers?

Unfortunately, most of us approach garden photography by grabbing the camera when a favorite plant blooms. We stand in front of our garden handiwork, trying to fit everything in, and then click the shutter. When the prints come back, we feel a vague sense of disappointment, wondering how photographs could capture the true beauty of the garden anyway.

Easy! The same skills used in designing a good garden - patience, attention to detail and practice - also aid in making good garden photographs.

Whether you take photographs for friends or as a record of your planting progress, pictures of your garden can become treasured mementos - especially when you learn some tricks of the trade. If you could invite professional photographers to help you capture your garden victories, here are some of the tips they would be likely to share:

First, don't get the camera out at high noon, when the sun is brightest and washes out color from your flowers and creates dark shadows. The softer light of morning and afternoon is better for photographing a garden's subtle color differences. Slightly overcast days will do as well. Clouds reduce harsh shadows, diffuse the light and emphasize colors.

You can discover the importance of light in your garden with an easy experiment. Choose a garden high point: perhaps a lovely group of annuals, a blooming tree, a favorite container plant. Then, during one weekend, take a series of photographs of the same subject at five different times of the day, perhaps 7 a.m.. 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Sounds like a lot of trouble? You won't think so when you see the result.

The camera captures what you may not have noticed: there are lighting conditions that favor certain spaces in your garden at different times of the day. The favored times will probably be early to mid-morning or mid- to late afternoon. Your challenge as a garden photographer is to discover which light works best with your garden's layout. The experimental pictures you take will make it evident to you why photography professionals are often outdoors and ready to shoot before dawn.

Of course, sometimes the photographer has no choice about the sun's position when a picture-taking opportunity presents itself; when visiting public gardens, for instance. If your travel schedule puts you behind your camera at the brightest times of the day, keep the sun behind you or shoot your pictures from the sanctuary of a shaded area.

Second in importance to lighting is the composition of the picture you take. Most of us strive to get everything in" our photos, as if our flowers were friends in a large group photo. We step back from the scene until every last plant is included.

And when we get the developed print, we don't understand why our pictures have no "oomph."

Unlike the eye, the camera can register only a small area within its rectangular format. So instead of including too many flowers in one picture, isolate a small grouping for emphasis.

Give the eye a path to follow in a picture by finding a center of interest. Perhaps that will be a large flowering plant surrounded by green neighbors. Don't snap the picture without considering the arrangement. Balance the starring plant in a pleasing way, usually away from the exact center, before pressing the shutter.

Once you get into the habit of carefully looking in the viewfinder before actually snapping, the quality of your finished pictures will improve. You will begin to hold your camera vertically at times to emphasize the height of a tree or a plant instead of shooting everything on the horizontal. Standing at an angle rather than directly in front of a scene will often result in a more interesting photograph. Look for curves in your viewfinder rather than straight lines.

Spotting visual distractions before you shoot is another way to improve your garden photos. Like background noise, visual distractions are those unsightly objects we easily "tune out." Telephone poles appear above tree tops and sprinkler keys pop up in planter beds because we don't "see" them as we prepare to capture the scene with our cameras. Before you snap the shutter, look around the edges of the viewfinder for any visual clutter that will take attention from the main subject of your photograph.

Patience is a key element in garden photography. Your subjects will pose for you indefinitely, so don't be in a hurry to take the picture. I've learned from professionals to spend as much time preparing to take each photograph as the situation demands. Sometimes, after studying the scene, I decide not to take a picture after all. If the light is too bright, if there isn't a pleasing plant composition, or if clutter distracts from the main subject, I'll pass on a photo opportunity.