More Spring Flowers

Spring can be a frantic time of year for an amateur photographer in England. There are all of these beautiful spring flowers opening, and all sorts going on
that needs to be captured. But there’s the day job to consider, and, of course, the English weather does get in the way.

Consider a grey, overcast sky in the west near sunset. No spring sunset colours today. An then the rain comes. And the clouds clear. And there is suddenly this beautiful light, just for a short while, with a tree  full of spring flowers (cherry blossoms). That’s the time when you absolutely need to have the camera handy.

And that is how the photo above happened.

Technique

Key to this shot is filling the frame and losing the background. That means using as wide an aperture as possible, and using a lens with a close focus capability. On the camera was my standard zoom (17 – 50mm f/2.8). I was just able to get in close enough to fill the frame. A bit of moving around was necessary to lose a busy dark and light background.

Processing was targeted towards a result which would look good on a greeting card. I used the Orton Effect tool (part of FX Foundry) in GIMP and added a white vignette.

Cards and Prints

Buy spring flower greeting cards, prints and canvasses at Jeremy Hayden Photography on Artist Websites.

UK viewers will find postage cheaper from my Photobox gallery.