Photographing Wildflowers

Layne Kennedy

Duration: 2 mins

Description

Photographing wildflowers can be a delightful experience. As you search for photo opportunities, you get to explore the beauty of the natural prairie. Yet, capturing a classic picture can be challenging. In this video on photographing wildflowers, professional photographer and instructor, Layne Kennedy, takes you among acres of wildflowers in a Minnesota park preserve on an overcast day.

“When I’m in the prairie,” he says, “what I look for is color. I love color.” Layne finds a sea of purple flowers among a growth of mustard weed, and he sets up his tripod at a low angle. He explains that if you are photographing wildflowers for a publication, the editor often prefers the image to include the flower, the stem, and the bloom. This separates the identified flower from the surrounding plants that look similar to each other.

Using a telephoto lens at a shallow depth of field to compress the scene, Layne focuses on a single pod of purple flowers. The yellow wash of the mustard weed behind the purple flowers creates a layered, blurry effect, bringing the main subject into sharp focus. In photographing wildflowers, the contrasting colors you choose for the backgrounds can add drama to your main subject.

Staying with the shallow depth of field technique, Layne also shoots a group of the yellow mustard weed flowers, keeping the green, prairie growth blurry as background. “The idea is to identify that the setting for my flower subject is prairie,” he explains. “I am showing my central subject, the mustard flower, is living in its natural habitat, not just a single flower in front of a black velvet backdrop.”

So tune into this video on photographing wildflowers. Pro shooter, Layne Kennedy, shows you landscape photography tips you can incorporate into your own images no matter where your photographic adventure takes you.