Flowers up close
Purple bellflowers and lavender in close-up, plum blossoms on a thin branch, a field of white calla lilies.
Flowers are among the most photographed subjects in the world, which makes them surprisingly hard to photograph freshly. Getting close is one way through.
Purple bellflowers and lavender, seen in close-up, stop being "flowers" in the general sense and become shapes, folds and soft gradients of colour. Plum blossoms on a thin branch show how much a single line can carry in a frame with plenty of empty space around it. A field of white calla lilies in Taiwan goes the other way: many flowers repeated into a pattern.
Close-up flower photography depends on a few things: soft, even light that does not burn out pale petals; a shallow depth of field to separate the subject from the background; and a steady hand, because at short distances even a little movement shows.
The reward is a way of looking that turns something ordinary into something new.
Photos: hpgruesen, loggawiggler, kanenori, hugo_ob on Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License. These are not my photographs.
