As you've seen if you've followed this blog, I've been known to hunt up flowers pushing their way through winter weather, even ice and snow. Today I took advantage of cultivated flowers, a lovely group of tulips that were a gift to my wife Pam from our friend Maki. Pam allowed me to borrow them and photograph the arrangement in my studio, where I could use a plain background and controlled lighting. Using fabric scrims, I set up a kind of diffusion tent around three sides, so there was mostly soft light from behind, left and right, as well as a broad source in front of the subject and a bit to camera left. I wanted enough cross lighting to show texture and shape, but an overall look of surround lighting to bring out the delicacy of the tulip blossoms.
Here is the whole, in a vase.
I got in a little closer and experimented with character and implied movement.
In this one I was aiming for depth.
This angle yielded an apparently linear array, though all I did was rotate the vase.
Tulips in "fog", thanks to lighting, contrast and perspective:
All of the photos were done with a 70-200 mm zoom on a full frame camera (Canon 5D Mk II).
I would love to be able to visit a field of tulips someday. Until then, I'll content myself with an occasional play session with indoor flowers.
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I hope you can go to England to see the hills covered with daffodils, as described by Wordsworth!
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