Findingviews

Over the last few years there has been a trend towards the sale of orchids as house plants. It struck me that the beauty of the orchid is a classic photography target, that has now entered a great many homes. No need for hot houses, or treks to out of the way areas to see the fragile beauty of British orchids. They are here in our living rooms.

Time to take some photographs.

I too have orchids in the home. However photos in the home can often have rotten backgrounds. What looks good to use when we set up house rarely looks good in the background of a photograph. To get around this I set up a white reflector and some really bright pink lilies behind the orchids. This way I could fill up my viewfinder with colour or reflected light. No naff background – just something I could work with to create the right picture.  If you don’t have a reflector don’t worry any bright or white cloth as a background will create an interesting effect. Try to get a colour that matches or contrasts well to your orchids. This will give the picture better balance.

Now that I had a set-up it was time to take photographs. I set up the camera for a close up, then varied low F numbers and a variety of flash angles and strengths. The important point here is that after each photograph I reviewed the picture and used to create a setting for the next. If I found it blurred I tried to steady things out with a gorillapod. I also could not help but noticing that I was getting good results by moving the camera position considerably. So a tip for taking this kind of photograph is to use a small tripod so that it can steady you when necessary but not restrict mobility so that those good angles can emerge.  On saying that my 3 favourite pictures were taken at a similar angle. That though is the difference between the fun of the shoot and reflection on the finished article.

Here are 3 of the finished photographs.  I hope you enjoy them and remember that some sterling photographic subjects can be found around the home.