Make hay whilst the sun shines, but don't take close ups of flowers!

Here's a likely scenario. Sunday morning, you wake up, open the curtains and it's a lovely sunny day. There's a high chance that you'll then say, "let's go out somewhere and make the most of the nice weather". You might choose to go and visit a local garden, treat yourself to a cream tea and buy a new plant for your own slice of Eden. If you're more likely to go mountain biking or to the pub there's probably not much point reading on.

If you've opted for the garden then bear with me. Chances are you'll take your camera with you, hoping to get a half decent shot or two to remind you of your visit and perhaps show to some like minded gardeners / appreciators. What I'm about to tell you will significantly increase the odds of your photographs being more than half decent.

Let's discuss the weather first. The sun is beating down, there's not a cloud in the azure blue sky. Perfect conditions for strolling around admiring luscious lawns and beds bursting with flowers of every hue. Out comes the camera and you're clicking away. A close up of a cream rose with petals edged with a delicate pink, a bee burrowing into the centre of a foxglove. Perfect! You can't wait to look at the pictures and you might even use the one of the rose to make a birthday card for someone.

Unfortunately there's a good chance that you'll be somewhat disappointed when you load them onto your computer. The camera doesn't always see what we see. Our eyes are used to evening out the contrasts between light and shade but the camera records faithfully with the result that your picture is likely to have very dark shadows and be lacking lots of the lovely details you remembered seeing.

This happens if the flower is in direct sunlight. Ideally you should find one that is in the shade or use the shade of your own body. I tried a couple of options with the hellebore to demonstrate the difference.

Both the above shots are better than the original one, with less deep shadows and the intensity of the pink petals and green leaves works very well.

Let's look now at flowers photographed in shade - ones you might have overlooked at the time because they didn't seem as attractive as the ones lit by the sun. The light is much more even and the colours are more saturated and intense. Petal and stamen details are not hidden in shadow. Of course it's sods law that the most photogenic flowers in the whole garden were the ones in bright sunlight!

But I hope I've made my point. Direct sunlight is not great for photographing flowers in close up. But you'll be pleased it hear that it is good for photographing garden scenes - just make sure the sun is off to one side or behind you - not directly in front!

All these pictures were taken at Bluebell Cottage Gardens, which opens 30th March 2011.

Up close with a creepy critter

We came across this hairy beast on the boardwalk by Pickmere Lake - I'm amazed that Daisy didn't spot it and it therefore survived her passing by. The light was great - sunlight filtered by the high reeds and also bounced back up by the bleached wood of the boards. My first shot is a bit typical and although in focus and correctly exposed, it is, well, just boring!! So I decided to try another angle, which involved me lying down. The caterpillar wasn't going anywhere - frozen to the spot in fear of a strange giant - so I thought I'd play around a bit with camera settings. These shots are all taken with my compact camera - Panasonic DMC-FS12 - so no fancy lenses or kit. I set the camera to its Macro setting for a close up shot - just select the flower setting to do this. I then put the camera on the boardwalk, rather than hand holding it. This was partly to get right to eye level with my hairy model, but also because I was lying at an awkward angle and wanted to ensure I didn't get camera shake i.e. blurred picture. Then I took picture 2. This has started to look quite interesting but the point that is in focus is the middle of the caterpillar's body (where the + is).

When you select the flower / macro setting it gets your camera to start doing some quite clever things. Wherever you focus with the little square in the middle of your screen will be in focus but other areas will be out of focus - this can be a really nice effect and is called "shallow depth of field". But you really want to think about which bit of your picture is going to be in focus and which bit is blurred. In this case it would look better if the caterpillar's head were in focus. I decided to change my angle again for picture 3, looking along the length of the caterpillar and making sure I focused on its head - I actually wasn't sure which end was which so I may have focused on its bottom by accident! I still put the camera on the ground and just pressed the shutter to avoid camera shake. This is a much more interesting shot and I really love the blurry grey of the boardwalk and green of the reeds.

So next time you meet a hairy critter that is willing to model for you have a little play around with your macro / flower setting and don't be afraid to get up close and personal!

Look for a different angle

Give your photos a bit of interest and add some quirky humour by shooting at a different angle. In this shot I lay on the ground at Abigail's feet and shot up through the tree branches. The tree in question is a Canadian Redwood, a baby admittedly, as these can grow spectacularly high and I wanted to emphasise the height and the fact that the kids were fascinated by them. I also made sure the flash would fire so that Abbie's face wouldn't be in dark shadow. The flares across the picture are from the high sun coming through the branches. If this had been coming directly into the lens it would have ruined the shot and I would have changed my angle. As it is I quite like the effect here.