You do not need to be in a studio to get a studio portrait look—all you need to do is to hold a piece of white cardboard or foamcore board behind the blooming flowers, such as these beautiful bearded irises in the garden of my friend Cindy Dyer. Cindy was gracious enough to hold the board for me and I returned the favor a few minutes later. Several viewers on my Facebook page commented that the style of these shots reminded them of botanical prints.
One of the challenges of shooting outdoors for shots like this was trying to get even lighting. I tweaked my settings in post-processing a bit to make the background as white as I dared, but did not go to the trouble of making the flowers perfect and removing any slight shadows or color casts from the background.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Nicely done. I like these a lot.
Wowsers! Why do I think my husband will want to try this with our irises soon? Thanks!
It’s really a pretty easy technique and it helps to cure the problem of cluttered backgrounds.
These are great photos, Mike. That first one is stunning. I don’t want to challenge you, but it looks like a good watercolor subject.
Thanks, Dan. The first one is my favorite too. As for watercolor, I’ll see what I can do to get inspired. 🙂
No pressure 😉
These are wonderful! They do look like botanical prints and the middle one almost looks like water color. Thank you again for sharing.
Thanks, Ann. It is fun to play around with different looks. Most of the time I tend to go with a more natural look, but this sure helps to focus the viewers attention onto the flowers.
Very nice Hi Key effect Mike!
Thanks, Reed. I definitely like the high key look in this situation. My friend Cindy had me hold a black panel for her to get some shots with a dark background, but I opted to stay exclusively with the white. I doubt you will see me use this approach in many of my photos, but it was fun experimenting with a different “look.”
Beautiful. Foamcore to the rescue.
They do look like botanical prints. I’ve used black foamcore but not white.
Nice effect, Mike. Quite artistic and these do look like botanical prints.
They’re really gorgeous! The yellow iris in particular really benefits from the use of this technique and I like it way better than I usually do.
It is fun to experiment. I had helped my friend Cindy use this technique years ago when she was shooting some ferns that eventually made their way onto US postage stamps. I will have to see how her shots with a black background turned out.
That’ll be interesting to know Mike!
The yellow one is my first choice, and yes, without your explanation, I would have thought they were pen and ink and hand-colored. I’d like to see how they would look with an 18% (neutral) gray card behind them.
Thanks, Gary. Do you mean having an entirely gray background or just a gray card to be able to get correct colors?
Back when I was starting to get interested in serious photography, Ansel Adams recommended using an 18% gray card ( readily available through many photo sources) for calibrating white balance under difficult lighting conditions. I still carry one (about 5.7″) and when things are really tough, set my exposure by the gray card reading. And it has proven its value many times through the years.
That makes sense, Gary, and I think I might even have a pocket size one, though I must confess that I have never used it. When it came to photographing the irises, I was wearing flip-flops and sweats and had walked over to my friend’s garden carrying nothing more than my camera, i.e. no accessories at all. 🙂
They look remarkably like painted illustrations. Beautiful!
Very nice, Mike. I particularly like the yellow one.
Thanks, Ellen. I like the fact there is a split among viewers in choosing a favorite shot.
OMG these are gorgeous.
Very lovely, Mike! I’ll just have to try that. Neat idea!
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[…] week ago I did a posting called Studio-like irises that featured photos of bearded irises shot against a background of a white foamcore board. This […]