Create the Perfect Canvas with Garden Photography

By B.E. Conrad

Year after year, gardening and photography top list after list of favorite leisure time activities. If you love to work with both your camera and your garden, why not combine these two loves with some stunning garden photography?

Many photographers love to photograph a beautiful and well manicured garden, and photos of flowers are among the most striking to be found anywhere. Many famous photographers have proudly hung their floral photographs on the walls of the finest museums and galleries around the world, and those photographs are always a big hit with museum visitors.

Even if your work is not ready for the nearest gallery or museum wall, the garden can provide the perfect canvas for your photography hobby. The vivid colors and patterns of the garden provide the perfect settings for both amateur and professional photographers, and those garden photographs can provide a wonderful document of the ever changing world of the garden.

The garden is an ever changing template of beautiful colors, textures and patterns, and it is a template that changes with the season. Documenting each seasonal change with a variety of photographs is a great way to further the enjoyment of your garden and your photography as well.

With the coming of digital photography, organizing those seasonal garden photographs is easier than ever before. Storing those photographs online, through photo sharing sites and permanently on CD is a great way to enhance your photography and remember your garden even when the summer and fall start o fade.

Garden photographers are also free to experiment with different types of lighting and effect. For instance, a rainy day in the garden can be a wonderful day for garden photography, as the patterns of the water on the leaves and foliage provide drama and beauty, and the shadows cast by overhead storm clouds can provide even more beauty in the finished photographs.

The garden is also the perfect setting for black and white photography. Although the beauty of full color garden and floral photography is hard to top, the drama of black and white garden photographs come pretty close. Some of the most fascinating professional floral photography is of the black and white variety, as is some of the best amateur photography.

It is also a good idea to experiment with a number of different lenses and settings in order to get the perfect floral photographs. For instance, many photographers find that using a large aperture lens to isolate a single flower is a great way to get those wonderful shots. The large aperture lens is good at removing any unwanted background images, which could draw the eye away from the main subject of the photo.

Focusing on a single flower is a good way to get those professional looking photographs. It is often helpful to place a light colored fabric around any other flowers in the landscape in order to isolate the bloom you have chosen.

Photographing the creatures that visit the busy garden can also be a rewarding hobby. The garden is home to all kinds of creatures, from the bees who pollinate the flowers to the birds and butterflies that love their wonderful aroma and delicious nectar. Photographing these fast moving creatures can be a challenge, but the results can be quite rewarding.

© Doityourself.com 2006