Flowers and Plants

This crocus was severed due to heavy winds. After half an hour, sheltered inside, it opened up to reveal a magnificent, purple flower. We love how clean and crisp this portrait is. An aperture of f/14 has provided a large enough depth of field to render the stamen and surrounding water droplets tack-sharp. But the real genius is the choice of background. Pink and purple are analogous colours (neighbours on the colour wheel), while also complementing the green stem perfectly.

We love the contrast between the delicate flowers and the striking mountainscape and dramatic, overcast sky. Yellow flowers add a dash of colour to an otherwise muted colour palette and provide foreground interest, while a narrow aperture ensures front-to-back sharpness.

Plants and insects are a winning combination. While the main subject is the ladybird, the daisy is an integral part of the image. We like how a super-shallow depth of field has been used to blur everything but the very tip of its petals, so as not to detract from the tiny bug. Everything surrounding the subjects is blurred beyond recognition too, isolating both flower and insect, and thus immediately channelling the viewer’s eye.

A variety of shapes and colours make flowers and plants excellent abstract subjects, and this vibrant image is a beautiful example of how multiple exposure and intentional camera movement can combine to form mesmerizing, painterly results. We particularly like how the ICM complements the lilys’ inherent motion, due to their billowing petals.

The field of poppies serves this landscape with striking foreground interest and leads the eye towards the lone tree in the mid-ground. Mist can make an image look flat, but this has been expertly mitigated by framing a location with layers, adding plenty of depth. A stunning shot!

These two cyclamen buds resemble a pair of swans, stems craned, meeting in the middle to create a distinctive heart shape. A gorgeous homemade background was placed behind the specimens to complement the pink and beige colour palette. The ethereal blur surrounding the flowers was created by shooting through more cyclamens, while focus stacking was used to render the subjects completely sharp.

The backlighting is key to this image, producing beautiful rim light that frames the subject and highlights the hundreds of tiny little hairs along the stem and flower. A shallow depth of field has also produced lots of bokeh, causing the subject to pop against the blurry background.

You could imagine this artwork hanging on a wall. The calla lilies were photographed individually, then overlaid on top of one another via a blending mode change in Photoshop. By following the rule of odds and positioning the subjects at varying heights, the frame is beautifully balanced. Another inspired creative decision was to desaturate the green stems, so the entire image was mono, save for the edges of the striking purple petals.

Cropping into the subject has obscured any distractions around the edges of the frame and suggests that the tessellation-like arrangement continues beyond the image. The soft glow was created by arranging the hydrangea flowerheads on a light box. This backlighting pulls out the petals’ texture and veins, contrasting beautifully against the darker shadows, and creating a crisply defined, graphic-art-style aesthetic.

We like how a super shallow depth of field has been used to completely blur the busy background and isolate the crisp subject. By shooting the flowerhead square on, the focal plane has been maximised so as much of the subject is in focus as possible, despite the shallow DoF.

This image is a striking flower portrait that’s beautifully lit. The black backdrop amplifies the vibrant pink petals, and yellow and green stamens, and the standard 30mm focal length (35mm equivalent) prevents noticeable barrel distortion from warping the subject. A great photograph!

While this might look like a professional studio setup, only a torch was used to create this stunning still life. The household light source was used to ‘paint’ light about the image during a long 30-second exposure. The result is a beautifully soft subject, surrounded by a dark, in-camera vignette. The wooden background and gardening tools create a homely aesthetic, that complements the rustic crate of flowering muscari bulbs perfectly.

This image was shot on a light box. The flowers were pressed before being arranged over the light source. The papery quality of the dried flowers has made them semi-translucent and this effect has been amplified by overlaying multiple exposures. A stunning shot!

This is a great image. The use of a mister to create rainfall adds interest, while the super shallow depth of field isolates the subject and completely blurs the foreground interest, creating a soft, ethereal frame. Finally, the purple fungus complements the green surroundings perfectly.

This lifestyle image is extremely creative, with the black and white photo, hand and dried flowers all used as metaphors to convey the passage of time. The slightly desaturated colour palette helps to bind the mono print and colour photo.