by Tony Sweet
Keys to success: Isolate, simplify, and watch subject placement
This article is excerpted from Tony Sweet's BetterPhoto.com course:
Fine Art Flower Photography
The beauty and infinite patterns of flowers make them a wonderful subject for photographic interpretations. Flowers are among the first subjects that all new photographers seek. They don't move (except for an occasional breeze), don't mind being photographed and therefore, are an excellent way to learn about and experiment with lenses and filters, exposure, composition, and special photographic techniques and effects.
Isolate: Make your subject clear. If you are photographing a group of flowers, isolate one or two or three. Select a specific subject to photograph out of the group.
Simplify: Watch out for busy backgrounds, hot spots, black holes, and extraneous elements entering the frame.
Backgrounds: The backgrounds are at least as important as the subject. Nothing can kill an image quicker than a busy background. There may be as little as an inch or less of camera repositioning to go from a distracting background to a pleasing, detail-less, muted background.
Subject placement: There are three "centers" in a frame: center-top, which is fine; center-bottom, which is fine; and center-center, otherwise known as "bulls-eye" composition, which is mostly not fine. The only hard-and-fast general rule is to avoid the center of the frame, although there are exceptions to this rule.
This article is excerpted from Tony Sweet's BetterPhoto.com course: Fine Art Flower Photography
To learn more about photography, explore the photography classes offered here at BetterPhoto.