Still Life Flowers; A trip down memory lane.

May 14, 2020  •  Leave a Comment

'You have memories to look back on today', Facebook told me so it must be true! 

We lived in Hong Kong when I took these flower photos, 4 years ago, in an apartment with no balcony & no interesting greenery nearby to photograph. But, I did have access to an excellent florist, tucked down a little alley, 5 mins walk away. I bought the most photogenic flowers I could find and a roll of different coloured papers and card. My project was, 'Still Life Flowers'. It was the first time I'd done any deliberate photography inside.

I loved the sweep of these hydrangea leaves as much as the stunning flower heads! The blue and white bowl I bought in Bangkok from a floating market. The crop of this image is too tight, but back then I was learning a lot and experimenting. 

Below, these Calla Lilies have almost pasta textured petals, they were perfect for adding shape and form to my images. The background colour is a bit too '70's, definitely on the nicotine stain end of the beige spectrum haha.

The shapes though!

I placed my table, camera, tripod and vase with flowers, near a window. I used a long shutter speed to capture the natural light. I was also experimenting with props and positioning to get the best light onto the composition.

The small blue beaker (top left) came from the same market in Germany as the salt glazed jug below.

The jug and flower head below are, 'floating', in my head I can hear my 'A' level Art teacher saying, 'you need to put it down!'

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I've added roses into the mix below. 

Boom!!! Bright buttery yellow tulips, all bought in Hong Kong...maybe from Amsterdam? But more likely Malaysia, Vietnam or China. I never was able to get a white background for this bunch?

These two bunches of tulips I still use on my Easter greeting cards. 

Simple!! I love sunflowers 🌻 and not just that, but they were available to buy from my tiny hole in the wall florist!

No particular focus for this image, but I liked the rough prickly, furry textures of the leaves. Blue background just for a bit of POP!! Light was coming from the right hand side onto the flowers and I had an off-camera flash set light up the paper behind the flowers so that they didn't cast a shadow. Using off-camera flash units is a whole other world of photography that I very rarely visit!

These photo memories were really good in terms of making me think about how my photography has developed.

I find still-life photography challenging and I'm not very good at it all, but there are certainly advantages when the weather is bad or you want to keep trying something out, you can leave everything set up and have another go tomorrow!

Finding a photography style for me has been as much about where I live and what I have available to me as what I am good at 😊 Once I found my style, I started to focus on that & slowly develop that style, making it unique to me. 

Thank very much you for reading my blog.

I hope that if you're a photographer you can find a style and genre that really suits you and you LOVE to keep working on!! 

Have a lovely weekend and week ahead! It certainly feels like the world is coming back up for air and things are returning to whatever the new, 'normal' looks like.

Ruth Morris (MA) has a Diploma in Professional Photography, is a multiple award winning member of the Guild of Photographers and an Associate of Royal Photographic Society. 

Ruth has 26 years experience as an Art and Design teacher and many, many years of experience in photography.

RPS_ARPS_CMYKRPS_ARPS_CMYK


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