Flowers

It's hard to take photos of flowers because it is so easy. You don't need particularly fancy equipment, and anyone can do it: just find a pretty flower, let it fill the viewfinder and press the shutter button, and there you have it. Another flower photo, pretty much indistinguishable from the other 10 billion flower photos taken on the planet today. Flowers are like sunsets, in that the subject matter does all the work for you, and you can get a shot you're kinda proud of without having to know much about what you're doing. But because there's so many flower pix and so many sunsets and because they all look the same, most fail to convey the wonder and beauty and subtlety and colour and detail which made you reach for your camera in the first place. You hope for a masterpiece and end up with a cliche.

We are surrounded by flowers. Our garden had 39 rose bushes last time I counted and I've planted another 3 or 4 since then. I think there's a couple of dozen rhododendrons, and then there's cameleas and peonies and azaleas and clematis and goodness knows what other things, that Clemency knows the names of and I don't. So all around us is this slow motion ballet, as each in their turn takes a week or two to unwrap themselves, put it out there for the bees to find, then crumple away as they get on with the real business of making hips and seeds and berries. In all this arc of change there is beauty - of veins and sheets and curves and lines and shades. I try to capture it. I try to show how wonderful it is. Mostly though I end up with another damned rose pic.

"Ooohhh, that's nice", they say.
"Yes it is", I agree, and sigh. I've missed the point again.

Photo: Nikon D7100; Micro Nikkor 105 F4; 1/2500, f8, iso200. I made several versions of this shot of a peonie. The flower was backlit by the morning sun and I was interested in the shadows as much as in the flower. In retrospect a smaller aperture would have been better, to bring the back petals into sharper focus, but you know what they say about hindsight.

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