How to Photograph Blooming Wildflowers on Digital or Film Cameras
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Loading... - Finn Gruber
- 01 Jul 2022
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Landscape photographer Michael Shainblum went wildflower spotting in his latest video to provide some tips on how to best capture nature’s blooming beauty.
For the most part, Shainblum can be caught photographing grand scenes, like Death Valley sand dunes, monsoon and lighting in a dried-out lake bed, or fog landscape on top of mountains or over the Golden Gate Bridge. This time though, he turned his lens to wildflowers that most photographers can find around them when the flower season rolls around.
Instead of waiting for the “right” shooting conditions, Shainblum changes his shooting intent based on the weather on the day.
“Certainly, a new partial cloud day with vivid colors would be a treat, but sometimes a cloudy or rainy grey day can still lead you to great photos,” he tells PetaPixel. “If you are shooting wide-angle wildflower photography and would like a bit of drama, dusk and dawn backlighting the flowers is always a great call to get them shimmering and shining such as in the first shot in the video.”
In contrast, towards the end of the video, Shainblum was met with heavy overcast and some rain, which creates a giant softbox effect.
For images in these weather conditions, Shainblum focused on isolating the landscape and removing the empty grey sky from the scene. The soft lighting worked well for the abstract textures and patterns he was after.
Locating Wildflower Shooting Spots
It’s not an easy task to locate shooting locations for wildflowers — they change year by year. To start, Shainblum notes it’s helpful to know when the wildflower season generally starts in the area.
“Learning the bloom for a specific season comes down to how much rainfall has happened in the area and what the weather has been like in general,” he explains “It always helps to have friends or ask local photographers how things are looking.” Read More...
