This was one shoot that I particularly enjoyed. I have fun doing most shoots but this one went very smoothly.
I saw these beautiful irises at the shops and couldn't wait to photograph them. Every time my mum's irises bloomed, I never got a chance to photograph them so when I spotted these I couldn't resist.
I don't often get time during the day to use natural light to photograph flowers so I used my handy dandy studio. The side lights are great for photographing texture. I decided to use my flash as well so that they was even light over the entire flower. The piece of card to the right helps blocks the light from the background so that the black is black instead of grey. To help soften the light I clipped pieces of white paper to the lights to diffuse the light.
When I start photographing flowers, sometimes I have a photograph in mind but I didn't in this case. I got the flowers under the lights and then realised that I wanted to capture the texture of the flowers. This is one aspect that is often missed with flowers. We look at the overall picture instead of the details.
I want to give a complete picture of the flower so I take close ups as well as capturing the full flower. There is a combination of lighting set ups. The bottom right and left photographs use the side lights and the flash bounced off the ceiling. The top two right photographs just use the side lights.
Reflecting on this shoot, I think I enjoyed it so much because there are so many images that I really like. I hope you like them as much as I do.