The mercury is climbing, the lycra to polar fleece ratio is increasing, and my hay fever tablets cannot be found when I need them most. All of which can only signal one thing – Floriade, the country’s biggest celebration of spring, will kick off this Saturday at Commonwealth Park. So much work has gone into the floral festival, so dust off those cameras, charge your smart phones, and prepare to up your Instagram game.
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Whether you're packing a high end digital SLR camera or a simple smartphone, the principles of making good pictures remain the same. Here are a few tips that may help keen photographers get the shot they’re after.
Make the flowers the star of the show
When viewing images, we subconsciously equate relative size to importance, so make those flowers enormous in your frame by getting up close, then get closer again. The great thing about the small sensors found in smartphones is that they generally allow one to focus at very close distances. By using a wide angle lens on traditional cameras, one can make the flowers in the foreground appear strikingly large and people in the background comparatively small.
It’s all about the light
Shoot when it’s bright. Bright sunny conditions will enhance contrast and saturate colours. The colours will really pop, but be careful not to let strong shadows fall over important elements in the photograph.
Shoot when it’s overcast. The light produced on overcast days is very forgiving, as it will be more even, and the softer shadows will make the flowers appear more delicate.
Shoot into the sun. We’ve all been told not to shoot into the sun, because it flares the lens and significantly reduces contrast. But there is a time to break rules, and if you get down low and position yourself so that the incoming rays are blocked by the flowers, you will get pictures of translucent flowers beautifully back-lit by the sun.
Isolate your subject
There is so much going on at Floriade that photos can end up looking cluttered. Isolate the main subject by shooting close or with a wide open aperture to make it clear what the viewer should be looking at.
Sea of flowers
By composing your picture so that the flower beds extend all the way to the edges of the frame, one can give the impression that the flower beds go on forever. A telephoto lens makes this easier to achieve with its narrower field of view.
Clean up the background
In the rush to photograph the most magnificent flowers, we often mentally filter out distracting elements in the background. But those rubbish bins and vehicles and other unsightly distractions will all be competing with the flowers for attention, so step left, step right, shoot upwards or shoot downwards - do whatever it takes to minimalise distracting background elements.
It's not just about the flowers
Every year Floriade continues to incorporate art and music and performance into the festival and these colourful elements should not be overlooked as a photographic opportunity. Some of the best photos over the years are those capturing people interacting with the flowers and the festival, so keep a lookout for these candid moments.
