Woodland wildflower

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Woodland wildflower

April 24, 2015 by Mike Powell

What is the best way to capture the beauty of the fragile wildflowers that carpet the forest floors at this time of the year? Should I try to photograph a single flower? Should I move in even closer and focus on only part of the flower (or crop away part of the flower)? Should the images be realistic or abstract?

These were some of the thoughts that went through my head as I took these shots of what I think is a kind of wild violet. As some of you can readily tell, I was in another one of my “artsy” moods. In case you didn’t notice, the first and last shots are actually variations of the same image that I cropped differently. I just couldn’t decide which one I liked better, so I included them both.

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 180mm macro lens, violet, wildflower | 9 Comments

9 Responses

on April 24, 2015 at 7:28 am | Reply rennydiokno2015

Reblogged this on rennydiokno.com.
on April 24, 2015 at 7:35 am | Reply mvschulze

I think I like the last of the two images, showing the whole of the flower, and offering a little more feeing for the nice depth of field effect. It’s good to see flowers again, although this morning, here in NJ, it’s back to the mid 30’s F!
- on April 24, 2015 at 7:49 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Depending on my mood, I like that last view as well and it’s pretty much the way that I framed it in the camera. We’re not in the 30’s at the moment, though I think we are in the low 40’s this morning.
on April 24, 2015 at 7:55 am | Reply Robert

They’re beautiful Mike, such a vibrant colour.
on April 24, 2015 at 8:51 am | Reply New Hampshire Garden Solutions

I’m not really sure what it is, but you got some good close-ups of it, and that’s not quite as easy as it seems.
- on April 24, 2015 at 6:41 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Allen. They are all over the place in the woods along with the pink and white Spring Beauties.
on April 24, 2015 at 11:50 am | Reply krikitarts

Can there be a (one) best way? I doubt it. It all depends on the frame of mind of the photographer at the time of the shoot and again at the time of after-capture processing. And each viewer will have his/her own opinions, as well. As for me, I prefer the second image. Lovely little violet!
- on April 24, 2015 at 6:42 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Once again, Gary, I posed a provocative question to see how people will respond. Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.
on April 27, 2015 at 7:20 am | Reply Ed

The best thing about digital is you can shoot many pics from different angles and distances, last week I shot 50 pics of the same group of trilliums. 🙂