{"id":458,"date":"2012-07-31T03:11:26","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T03:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stacy.awegallery.com\/?p=458"},"modified":"2012-08-01T03:24:56","modified_gmt":"2012-08-01T03:24:56","slug":"july-week-4-lo-how-a-rose-is-blooming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stacy.awegallery.com\/?p=458","title":{"rendered":"July week 4 – Lo, How a Rose is Blooming"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Almost every city and town has a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rose garden.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 They seem to attract people of every age, culture. gender and philosophy who admire the beauty of the rose and in them find peace, serenity and joy while walking among them<\/p>\n

It seems that most people never grow tired of photographing roses. The gardens also provide a wonderful location to create portraits, wedding images and family photos.\u00c2\u00a0 My father who was a portrait and wedding photographer would always take the bride and groom and their party to Central Park Rose Garden in Schenectady, New York.<\/p>\n

An overcast day is the perfect time for portraits of people and the roses themselves because the colors are not washed out by the sun and their details are not lost in deep shadows.\u00c2\u00a0 Sunshine in the garden will make for very garish, contrasty and harsh images.<\/p>\n

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Dew Drops on Petals – Ring Light Flash<\/p><\/div>\n

It is here among the rose\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s petals and perfumes that you can practice and perfect practically every type of photography technique:\u00c2\u00a0 selective focus, macro, creative, maximum depth-of-field, abstract, portrait…. you name it! \u00c2\u00a0You can even challenge yourself to go into the rose garden with every lens that you have and not return until you have used each one. \u00c2\u00a0Or with a single lens capture multiple angles and vantage points!<\/p>\n

I have the tendency of spending a lot of time looking through my lens at the same subject and repeatedly tweaking it by changing the angle slightly, the exposure or the depth-of-field.\u00c2\u00a0 Allow yourself the option of working with just one rose for an hour.\u00c2\u00a0 Or return to the same rose garden several days in a row before you head off to work or whatever routines fill your day.<\/p>\n

Every morning Golden Gate Park was laden with fog and some mornings the fog was so thick that the drizzle and drip of it was making gorgeous water drops on the roses \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the kind you cannot reproduce with a spritz bottle. For three mornings I worked exclusively (for an hour) with a 100-400 mm lens and an extension tube.\u00c2\u00a0 The tube allows you to move in a little closer than your minimum focusing distance.<\/p>\n

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Tweaked in Photoshop – Levels and Poster Edges<\/p><\/div>\n

At 200-400mm your background is rather narrow as opposed to all the clutter you include with a wider angle lens.\u00c2\u00a0 Background can make or break your image.\u00c2\u00a0 I prefer soft splashes of color for a background.\u00c2\u00a0 Position yourself so that other flowers or greens are at certain distances from your subjects (looking especially for colors darker than your subject) and check your depth-of-field.\u00c2\u00a0 Too much focus creates too much busyness.<\/p>\n

Getting in close to find compositions of just parts or petals of the rose is another way to capture their beauty. If you add flash be careful because the dew drops will reflect the flash,\u00c2\u00a0 although you might experiment and see how that can help create an image.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So I return to a beloved 15th<\/sup> century hymn song in my childhood:<\/p>\n