Sunset Plants

When I have an assignment to shoot plants, it can be a challenge to find a neutral background.  Shooting for the plant development team at Sunset Plants in the demonstration gardens at Sunset publishing, there is no lack of backgrounds.  The problem is finding a plain background.

White flowers are always difficult to photograph.  It is hard to get good detail in white without adding gray, so for their new white Agapathus I looked for a neutral background and decided on this variegated Pittosporum.

Sunset Plants

It became quite a nice shot when we added more plants, but what really go my eyeball poppin’ was found on the other side of the Pittosporum hedge – a dark, dark Aeonium.

Sunset Plants

Makes me almost dizzy just to look at it.  Hardly neutral.

More on photographing plant combinations in Details and Vignettes, chapter 6 inThink Like A Camera and available as its own iBook lesson for $1.99 in iTunes of Google Play.