Backlighting and Shadows

When:
Summer

Where:
Edge of a pond,
Michigan

How:

It was early morning, and the sun had just peaked over the top of the trees as I was strolling along the edge of a pond looking for subjects to shoot.  

As I was walking, I happened to look up into a Sycamore tree and saw this interesting combination of backlighting and shadow.

The alignment of the leaves was amazingly perfect. I set up the frame with a nice tight shot to eliminate all the clutter of leaves and concentrated just on the main show.  

I set my f/stop at f32, as I had a lot of depth between the front leaf and the background leaves. I placed my point of focus on the small backlight leaf, which was about halfway between the front and back leaves.

It’s all about being in the right place at the right time and always scanning with your eyes for subjects like this. I could have easily walked past this but was lucky on this day that I looked up.

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This is not my usual macro/close-up image but while I was shooting macro/close-up images at the Meijer Botanical Garden in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I looked up into this very tall group of palm trees in the tropical greenhouse and just had to shoot these crazy patterns in the palms.

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My wife and I went to a local nursery to buy some new plants for our flower beds and came across this flower that I have never seen before.  

I was like, wow, look at this crazy looking flower, have to buy one to photograph. 

The sign behind the pots said it was a Kangaroo Paw Plant.

Shot with my Fuji X-T30 MKll and my Tamron 18-300.

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Shot this Zinnia at the Ankley Farm in Imlay City, MI.  Used my Fuji X-T30 MKll and Tamron 18-300 lens.  f/25 @ 1/30sec ISO2000.

Did a square crop of the flower center, sharpened the image and changed the color from the original red to what you see here.

Here is the original out of the camera.

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I’ve been experimenting with silk flowers purchased from a local crafts store and I have to admit that they look very real. The one problem with photography them is that the fine texture in the silk fabric can be seen in the photos. It is not as noticeable to the naked eye, but the camera and lens sees all. I think these will work out great by adding some artistic filters which will help hide the textures of the silk fabric. The Topaz Impression program or the Glow program Topaz recently released will work great for processing these silk flowers.

I just set them up on my stairway where I have great natural lighting from a large window on the second story of my foyer and using one of my background prints. Holding the subjects with a Wimberley Plamp.

So far, I’ve worked with a rose, sunflower, and the two calla lilies you see here.

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Here are my three favorites from my first shoot with the silk flowers. I’ll post some different flowers in future.

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FLOWER PHOTO CLUB - Mike Moats - Award Winning Macro Photographer