Orchids in Utah

No, orchids do not grow naturally in Utah.

But my sister, who is a florist, has more than a dozen in her home and they bloom like crazy! I took some time to photograph them indoors and stay out of the heat as well. I love photographing flowers (Fine Art by Kathleen ) and have shown my work in many different art shows around the country.

The first example is SOOC (straight out of camera) with only a few minor tweaks to color and contrast. And cropped in the square format.

I back lit the blossoms against the bright kitchen window and intentionally over exposed it. Letting the background go white and keeping the focus tight on the blossoms.

Try this at home!

It works best with a delicate bloom with not too many petals in the flower. Tulips and orchids are great subjects. Roses, not so much. They are too dense to give the delicate look this technique works best on.

In this second image I used a similar technique .

This one I did not shoot directly into the back light, but more at an angle. You can see the outdoors in the background, through a screen if you look closely. The dappled background comes from using a very shallow depth of field, again focusing tight on the main bloom to get sharp focus. In this image, I did NOT overexpose it to give that ethereal light and delicate look in the first image.

A shallow depth of field, 1.4 or 2.8 usually will give this type of look. This image I cropped to give a stronger feel using the rule of thirds:

Using a tic-tac-toe type of imaginary grid, crop so that the main points of interest fall where the grid intersects.
Also put the main horizontal lines or the main vertical lines on one of the grid lines. This usually gives the strongest composition.

Use a shallow depth of field:

Either put your camera on M (manual) and dial in the exposure or, if you are too nervous to do that, just set the camera on A (aperture), choose the smallest aperture and let the camera pick the shutter speed. (The smallest aperture is the one with the lowest number, ie: 1.8, 2.0, 3.5, 4.5 or 5.6, depending on your lens. The numbers are on the lens itself. Just turn the ring until the lowest number lines up with the white dot on the lens.)

Sometimes the most gorgeous images are indoors! Experiment and let me see your results.

One of the REALLY nice benefits of traveling is being able to visit with family and friends more often.