Creative Garden Photography: Making Great Photos of Flowers, Gardens, Landscapes, and the Beautiful World Around Us by Harold Davis

Gardens are everywhere, all around us. In this long-awaited guide to garden and flower photography, noted photographer and author Harold Davis tackles the subject of garden photography with an expansive brush. In this book, you’ll find techniques ranging from photographing vast formal gardens to photographing flowers for transparency on a light box. You’ll learn about closeup photography and how to become a better landscape photographer.

Whether you’re photographing tiny flowers or grand landscapes, wandering outside in the garden or bringing the garden indoors, your photography will be enhanced using the many techniques in Creative Garden Photography. Garden photography includes a huge range of photographic styles and technical information that can be applied to almost any kind of photography. In this book, you will learn to use an incredible range of tools from one of the acknowledged modern masters of photography.

•Explore gardens, types of gardens, and how best to photograph them

•Learn about light, light direction and quality, and controlling light in your photography

•Work with your camera and tripod to achieve optimal focus

•Use creative exposures to make beautiful imagery

•Photograph flowers on a light box for transparency

•Learn techniques for creating impressionistic photos

•Master close-up focusing, depth of field, and focus stacking

•Explore complete exposure data and the story behind every photo

“My goal as a photography teacher and writer about photography is to inspire and to help you become the best and most creative photographer and image-maker that you can be.”

—Harold Davis

“Harold Davis’s ethereal floral arrangements have a purity and translucence that borders on the spiritual.”

—Popular Photography Magazine

“Davis is a pioneer and a new art form—part photographer, part digital illusionist.”

—Rangefinder Magazine

“Harold Davis’s Creative Photography series is a great way to start a photography library.”

—PhotoFidelity

TABLE OF CONTENTS

What’s Not to Like about Gardens?

ENTERING THE GARDEN

Understanding Gardens

André Le Nôtre and the French Garden

Garden Styles

The Backyard as Garden

The Garden as Status

The Importance of Garden Design

PHOTOGRAPHING THE GARDEN AT LARGE

Of Light and the Garden

Intensity of Light

Diffusion

Light Direction

Checklist: Finding the Right Position

Understanding Reflectivity

Color and White Balance

Exposure and Light

Key Takeaways about Exposure

Special Times for Lighting

Using a Tripod

Creative Options with Tripods

Anatomy of a Tripod

Tripod Legs

Tripod Heads

Using the Tripod in the Garden

Focus and Depth of Field

Being in Focus

Soft Focus

Camera Position

Tilt-Shift Lenses

Focal Length

Types of Lenses

Focal Length and Depth of Focus

Manual and Autofocus

Depth of Field

Aperture and Depth of Field

Infinity and Hyperfocal Distance

The Garden in Black & White

Converting to Black & White

Extending Dynamic Range

Multi-RAW Processing

High-Dynamic Range (HDR)

Automated HDR

Hand-HDR

Impressionistic Photography

In-Camera Motion

Subject Motion

Out of Focus

Creative Exposures

In-Camera Multiple Exposures

Gardens of the Mind

TAKING THE GARDEN CLOSE-UP AND INSIDE

The Art of Transparency

How Light Box Photography Works

What Kind of Light Box Works Best?

Arranging Flowers on a Light Box

Light Box Photography

Post-Production of High-Key HDR Images

Inversions in Post-Production

Understanding LAB Color

Inverting a White Background to Black

Brightening Images after Inversion

Photography on Black

The Flower as Diva

Low-Key Photography in the Field and Studio

Low-Key HDR Post-Production

Macro Photography

Macro Photography Gear

Macro Lenses

Extension Tubes and Bellows

Close-Up Filters

Focusing Rails

Specialty Gear

Extreme-Macro Lenses

Macro Photography in the Garden

Focus Stacking

Focus Stacking in Photoshop

Photographing Water Drops

Approaching Water Drop Photography

Reflections and Refractions

Spider Web Studio

Photographing Little Critters

Getting Close

Stopping Motion

Focusing and Critters

Auxiliary Lighting

Modifying Light

Macro Lighting Tools

NOTES, RESOURCES & INDEX

Where to Go for More Info

Sensor Size Matters

About EXIF Data

Focal Length

Cameras and Lenses

List of Figures

Locations of Gardens Photographed

Botanical Glossary

Photographic Glossary

Index