If you have a chance, plan your photography for early morning when the wind is quiet, flowers are fresh, and the light is sweet.
Try to stay away from working in the middle of the day; though backlight can become magical as seen in the red ‘Altissimo’ rose above.
Strong hot sunlight is very contrasty, but for flower photography a few simple tricks will allow anyone to work in any light.
While it is impossible to control the light in a wide garden scene, a flower is small. Take advantage of the small area of a flower composition.
Here I used a simple scrim to often the light of these ‘Gold Medal’ roses. See how to use a scrim in this post “Harsh Light on Lilies“.
Learn more tips the soon to be released ebook, Photographing Roses from which these photos were taken.
Learning how to read the quality of light is the single most important skill in good garden photography. Even a good composition will fail if the light is bad.
I enjoyed your presentation at Annie’s on Saturday, even though I seldom use a tripod and never, so far, any light modification. And do most of my shooting while walking the dog in the afternoon. I will have to try. Anyway, it was a great opportunity to make some flower fotos, and I thought I’d make bold to share my “keepers:” https://www.flickr.com/photos/swedg/albums/72157671574793160. The sunflower is practically SOOC.
Hi Steve – Thank for coming to the presentation and thanks too, for sharing photos. This is absolutely what I hope fellow garden photographers will do. Isn’t Annie’s a great place to take photos ?
My two favorite photos are the first one with the round edges of pots in the distance helping to “fill the frame” of your composition, and the yellow Rudbeckia in front of the blue background. The others seem simple by comparison. Keep taking photos !