am I on the right path?? first flowers pix, c&c would be great..thanks

[mariejo]

[Donald]

Marie-Josee

I would say you are on the right path, but the images are quite small. It would be better of you posted them at a a larger size.

There isa badly blown-out area of sky at the top right of the last one. In the rest you seem to have some nice shapes and tones.

[Geoff F]

I have often tried to photograph an expanse of flowers but 99% of my attempts get ditched. It is a difficult scene to successfully capture.

So I wonder if you could crop that last image towards the back of the flower bed and remove the hedge and sky which Donald was concerned about. Turn the scene into a landscape format (possibly 5 x 4 ratio) which would concentrate more on the well exposed foreground.

The others seem fine.

[Wirefox]

Yep, you are certainly on the right track. Geoff's comment is spot on. Whilst we appreciate plants in a garden environment that environment relies on multiple senses to get the full hit. The garden designer (and nature for that matter) takes full advantage of aspect, proximity and mood. When we try to capture that as a visual concept alone it often falls flat. However, most garden designers provide optimum viewing positions. The garden should be designed to channel the viewer into certain areas that show off the visual and other sensory stimulants to the full. This is very apparent in large formal gardens but even more so with the modified natural landscapes created by designers like Capability Brown. These designers place the browser into key positions without them consciously knowing they are being manipulated to give them the maximum visual impact. As a photographer it is well worth studying how gardens position the viewer and use that advantage in your photography. I hope you do not mind but I have included a couple of photographs that are shot from just such a view points. These vantage points were created by the garden designer and each looks out directly across to another view point (a tower and a raised rest area). The first shot was from the rest area and the second shot is taken from the tower and I think goes some way to demonstrating why the garden designer puts you into that position. From this simple study we can then start to apply a similar logic to the natural world since whilst formal these gardens draw heavily on forms and patterns occurring within nature. We can therefore use this logic to find optimum standpoints for natural subject matter by applying similar thought processes as the garden designer



.

[Geoff F]

It must always be remembered that we view a scene in 3D while a camera captures a 2D image.

So unless there is some form of natural perspective, as with Steve's photos, the scene can easily become 'flat' on a photo.