The glory of spring is celebrated in the wildflowers that carpet our landscape. While I love looking at them, I’m just not into getting down on the ground, in the breeze, arse in the air photographing them. Yet, I can’t just pass them up. So over the years I’ve come up with strategies permitting to capture their beauty while minimizing the the aspects of wildflower photography I detest the most. Here are two examples of the techniques I use to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
The top photo was taken with a 300PF and the bottom with the 18-35AFS. The two techniques are kinda focal length dependent. Both techniques are blossom quantity dependent, that is, there are more then one blossom in the photo. This is because not every single blossom as to be tack sharp for the photograph to work. So if there is a breeze, it won’t ruin the moment or cause me to stand around for hours waiting for them to stop. The top technique is using a long lens, minimum DoF with a darkish background to make them visually pop. The bottom photo is shooting wide and over the top of the subject. Over the top means, you’re standing nearly right above the foreground blossoms and then tilting the lens down so you just have a sliver of the horizon. With the tilt out monitor on the D750, no sticking the arse in the air, easy peasy! While I can’t go full blown into posey pics, I sure can get into the grander version with these simple yet effective techniques.