Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Longwood Gardens




While waiting for my car to get service, I have been working on images I shot on Monday at Longwood Gardens, for my lecture next Monday, March 15 at Penn Camera on Reisterstown Road, on Improving your Garden Photography. I hope I get a few more participants to register between now and then.

When I first arrived at Longwood I went to the large room with the big garden pool. There were large calla lilies in the beds and the light was fairly harsh on the blooms as the sun was shining through the conservatory ceiling. There were a few blooms in bright light, but not harsh light. I made some exposures there enjoying the beautiful shapes of the trumpets on these lilies. I knew if I exposed for the highlights the background I worked hard to set up with dark vegetation, would go black, which is what I wanted so when I converted these to Black and White the trumpet would be the focal point of the image with no foliage detail. I guess you could create this in a studio with a black velvet background and controlled lights, but I like to shoot in the environment, not a studio.

I'll be working on another collection of images from that day I made outside with the Lensbaby. I will post a few of those later...after I fine tune the presentation I am working on for the Arundel Camera Club on the Governors Cup Race I photographed last year. Lots to do!

2 comments:

  1. Karen - Absolutely stunning, I love these! I shot the heck out these when I was down there with Barclay a couple weeks ago. May have to play around with some b/w conversion on them, now that I've seen yours.

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  2. Thank you very much, yes they make great B & W conversions, do a little levels and masking and they get even better!

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