Photographing Flowers
 

by : Linda Muir

I have always found that flowers were fairly easy and interesting to photograph. They are the perfect models to work with and were my very first subjects to photograph when I first started using a digital camera.

When I saw this particular giant Cosmos, I knew I wanted to do a different presentation for this wonderful flower that was growing in my friends garden. I removed the flower from it's original background using the magnetic lasso with 90% feathering - then with the original background, I plastic wrapped (PS) and faded it using virtual photographer. I then added a shadow and framed using the eyedropper choose a gray color from the background. The last step was to add the flower I cut out and add it to the remaining photo. Wanted this to be a creative and interesting view of this giant cosmos and hope you like this as well.

This is one of my mom's unusual sunflowers, just before it reveals its' center, it looks like a big ball of fluffy petals, kind of like a mum. It's called a "Golden Greenheart" Sunflower and is about 4-5 inches across. Taken in natural sunlight, with a natural background in, the garden. No PS work done other than slight cropping and adding a frame. This was a very easy photograph to work with mainly because I took the photo as close as possible so there would not be too much to crop in anyway.

Photographing flowers has taught me a lot in regards to how to present a nice photo. From the photos, I have learned how to make them interesting in terms of presentation, composition, sharpness, details etc. and the ability to learn to work with them in programs such as Photoshop Elements, Photo Explosion Deluxe and Virtual Photographer. Flowers were and are my learning subject as they have given me to encouragement and desire to try different kinds of photography subjects.
 

source : www.photos-of-the-year.com