Flowers Delight!

Over the weekend, my wife together with my two daughters and I, went to church early and ate out for breakfast as I wanted to go to the Orchids Festival that was just recently concluded last March 7, 2011. These were taken at the Quezon City Memorial Circle where the festival was held.

I wanted to be early so I can still have soft natural light and didn't want to use flash in this occasion. Indeed the day was blessed with magnificent light. I really like taking photos of flowers under ambient light. Flower photography is my first love in photography and I can't wait to get myself a true dedicated macro lens for this (but it has to wait for awhile).

So let me share some of my favorites which I am very happy to share with you along with some description of the photo.

Here's an orchid where my intention is to focus on only one or two blossoms and let the others in the cluster blur in the background. Though the other blooms are blurred, it retained it's general form, shape, and color suggesting that the only focused bloom is part of a group and not a solo.

f/3.2, 1/200sec, ISO 200

Here's another bloom where I intentionally took a shot of the top part only of the cluster and show the color and the remains of the previous night's rain on them.

f/3.2, 1/640sec, ISO 200

A close-up shot (not a macro) of a bloom from a cluster of orchid blooms where I intentionally shot only one to reveal the patterns and color of this particular bloom. Actually, if you can look closely, there seems to be an alien's face (similar to movies -- big eyes, small mouth, and probably a third eye on the forehead) there in the pattern.

f/3.2, 1/320sec, ISO 200

This particular bloom is quite interesting for me as this variety is very seldom seen. The common color of this bloom is pink. I am actually trying to grow the common variety of this in our garden.

f/4.0, 1/125sec , ISO 200

I remember that this is my second shot from the series of photos that I have taken from this trip. My wife actually spotted this particular bloom for it's peachy color. The shallow DOF was intentional as I wanted to introduce dimension to the flower. I hope I achieved this. :)


f/2.8, 1/125sec, ISO 100

Ain't that delightful? Thank you for viewing. I hope you were enjoyed the photos as I enjoyed taking photos of them.

Share your delight and mine by sharing this blog entry to your friends.

Cheers!

Studio or Not?

Previously, I posted my favorite photo from a recent portraits photoshoot session here. That was ambient light only. These ambient light only shots were only additional shots after the actual session.

Here are some of those studio shots -- not!

I was commissioned to do some portraits to be used for a debut invitation. Client wanted a studio session but I didn't have one so I improvised. The client was willing to go to our place and I planned out where the shoot will take place and I've picked our veranda which was spacious enough to move around and of course it has lots of good ambient light!

I didn't rely only on the ambient light that's coming from the left of the subject. I had to mix it with artificial light from my flash. I positioned it at the subject's right side to act as a filler so I'll have two sides with light. Balancing the output of the flash was a bit tricky since I have one light source that's varying in intensity as the clouds move across the sky. :) I guess that's why on the first photo, the right side has a warmer (yellow-orange) light.

Here's an overview of my setup. Can you see Mr. Sun on the right side smiling? :)

I would like to have more opportunities to have this kind of sessions in the coming weeks. :)

By the way, I did edit a little on the background to make it that white and remove the not so visible creases on the white cloth used in the background.

Original Background

Edited Background

With additional lighting, I could have done it without any editing. Next stop, additional light. :)

Cheers!

Beautiful Ambient Light

Last weekend I was able to take another portraits session and I just want to share this ambient light that I was able to use -- soft and just beautiful.

Sharp Eyes

It even created wonderful catch lights on the eyes and casted soft shadows. It's one truly a softbox made in heaven.

This was taken in full shade at around 11:00 AM where the sun is probably almost peeping from the edge of the roof where we were.