So Delicate and How I Shot This Photo

Every year, once midsummer has passed, my rose of sharon shrub blooms its delicate pale pink blue toned petals. For some reason, I like how these flowers look floating in a bowl of water. Pretty petals as thin as crepe paper.

I thought I would take a few moments today to share how I shot this photo. Would you like to hear that? I hope so! First and foremost, I was inspired easily by this flowers delicacy and wanted this image to be super soft, feminine, like a pretty pastel watercolor painting. I chose a mint green bowl because I think mint green looks so nice with pale pinks - both colors work with each other to establish the soft, gentle look I was trying to convey.

I shoot about eighty percent of my still photos at this window. I am lucky to have this spot right in my kitchen as it it very convenient for my food photos. I love to shoot on rustic surfaces. These are just some old boards I found that I painted a matte country white color. I am hunting for these type of surfaces all the time.

For this particular photo, the time of day was late morning and it was sunny. The light was not direct or harsh yet, so I did not diffuse the background light. If I do need to diffuse, I will use a sheer curtain. Taped up vellum paper or parchment paper works well also. I have made it a habit to always bounce the light on to the subject. Sometimes I use two light bounces. But, in this case the natural light I had was already so smooth and pretty, I just used a small folding panel foam board. Bouncing light onto your subject really makes your focus point pop and removes the shadows. It makes a world of a difference. So important.

Onto the shooting. I wanted this to be very soft, so I shot it wide open at 1.4 to achieve a shallow depth of field and bumped up the aperture compensation by one number ~ just to give it a pinch more brightness and luminosity. I kept the ISO at 100 because there was no need for more light. Then I took my photo to processing to resize it, do some wee boosting on highlights and brightness. I didn't feel like this particular image needed any contrast or sharpening adjustments. To polish it off and give the image a light, soft vintage mood - I took it to vintage processing then faded that out to take out the yellow tones and bring out more whites. Done! I have a tripod, but I don't use it anymore. I'm not crazy about it and I would like to get a better one. I try to stay in good practice with holding my camera well when I shoot - patience and focus comes into play here too.

I could talk passionately about photography for hours really, but I'll just stop here for now. Until next time.