Garden Photography - putting your garden on a wall.

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Garden Photography
Having had a rather unproductive gardening spring and early summer I decided I needed to see a little garden color. Since color wasn't in my garden this year I had to rely on gardens and blooms I'd photographed in the past. In other words what I'd captured on film and had transferred to computer disk would become a wall garden I could enjoy.

I don't own a digital camera and rely on a 35mm aim and shoot camera for most of my pictures. It does all the work - focus, correct exposure, and adds a flash if I need it. What it does have is a 38 to 115mm zoom lens so I can stand in one place and frame the picture with the lens by zooming in or out. What the camera doesn't have is extreme close up abilities which would certainly come in handy for taking pictures of both pesky and friendly insects. But one learns to use what one has and it's really easy to attach the camera's case to the ever expanding belt around my waist so the camera is always available when I need it. There's no bulky camera bag to haul around with all the accessories I'd probably never use. It's so simple I think anyone, with a little practice, could take nice garden and plant pictures suitable for framing and sharing with friends and family.

If you're reading this article on The Tucson Gardener Web site I'm going to make the assumption you have a computer and a printer. Hopefully a color printer. You probably have a camera and can have your pictures put on a disk at the time of film processing. Or you may have a collection of pictures that can be scanned onto a disk with the right equipment. Where there's a will there's a way to get your pictures on to the computer.

Taking Better Garden Pictures
From my experience the hard part of taking pictures is getting what's considered a good one on film. Of course what you may think is good may not be what I think is good. We need to try and distinguish between the snapshot and the planned picture. Believe me, everyone has a drawer, or photo album full of snapshots. Those memories we like to share with friends and family every now and again.

Since we all agree we have lots of snapshots let's work on getting one or two really good pictures. Those pictures really suitable for framing. That means the right exposure, good lighting, and most importantly good composition.

The right film exposure - this is a simple matter if you use an automatic camera. It will decide using the camera's built in light meter what the correct exposure (shutter speed and aperture opening) is for the film you're using. If you're using an adjustable exposure camera you'll have to decide on the shutter speed and aperture opening using the camera's built in light meter, and then decide whether you want to over expose or under expose the film a little. Professional photographers take several pictures of the same subject varying the film exposure to make sure they get a picture they can use. The method is called bracketing.

Good lighting - the most interesting lighting is early in the morning or late in the afternoon toward evening. The harsh sunlight of midday has a tendency to wash out the color and you don't get the shadows that can add interest to a picture. If you think you've got too many shadows you can always add light to the picture using your camera's flash.

Interesting composition - here's where most picture takers make their mistakes. We're usually in a hurry, especially when photographing people, and don't spend enough time thinking about composition: the arrangement of the elements in the picture. When looking through a camera's viewfinder the easiest thing to do is put everything in the center. Easy, but not the best method for interesting composition. The rule of thirds suggests you divide your viewfinder into thirds with imaginary lines whether you're shooting a horizontal picture or vertical.

When you compose your picture you want to put the main object of interest where one of the lines intersects. This really works well for individual flowers or plants. If you get in the habit of using the rule of thirds for your photographs you can break the monotony of everything in the center of the picture. Remember this works for either a horizontal picture or vertical.

Don't be afraid to shoot more than one picture varying the distance from your subject. There's nothing worse than looking at a picture where you have to pull out a magnifying glass to see what you're looking at. In other words fill the frame with your subject matter, especially when it comes to pictures of flowers and animals.

You also shouldn't be afraid of introducing a background to a photograph help your subject matter stand out. The Iceland poppy above had a piece of light yellow cardboard held behind it. The tomatoes pictured further down this page were placed on a bail of straw. The pot of Iceland poppies to the left were moved so the flowers were in the sun and the background in heavy shade. The contrast helps the flowers to stand out emphasizing the flowers' long stems and plants' green foliage. If you enjoy taking pictures of your desert garden then you'll learn to experiment to get the best and most memorable images you can.

Editing Before You Print
Once you've taken your pictures and had them transferred to digital format on your computer it's time for the fun part - getting them ready to print and frame. You may have gotten prints with your film when you had it processed. There's a chance the photos are suitable for framing because they're the right size and you did an excellent job in composition. Congratulations.

On the other hand maybe the prints aren't the 4 by 6 or 5 by 7 you need to fit your frames. (The 8 by 10 size are a little large for my printer and resolution of my digital images produce grainy unsuitable pictures.) To get the size picture you want you'll have to print them on your color printer. The Kodak picture disk which is used to produce the images on The Tucson Gardener Web site comes with a simple to use storage, cropping and printing program. It doesn't let you manipulate the image to change colors or add special effects. However, plenty of reasonably priced computer programs are available like Microsoft's Picture It or Adobe Photo Deluxe for doing more manipulation to your pictures if that's what you want.

Before you decided to print your photo you might want to experiment with a bit of cropping to see if you can improve on the quality of the picture by eliminating extraneous portions around the area of importance. If you cropped before you took the picture (moved in close, used the rule of thirds, etc.) then you shouldn't have to do too much editing. You're ready to print.

I use regular printer paper instead of investing in special photo paper because my garden wall is viewed from a distance and most people aren't going to notice the difference because they'll be so awe struck by the well composed, colorful pictures from my garden. (This is, of course, merely wishful thinking on my part.)

Putting Them All Together
Small, inexpensive frames can be found in many different stores. Or, if you've got the time, tools and inclination you can make your own simple frames from wood molding purchased at a lumber yard or the Home Depot. You'll also want glass to fit the frames to protect the pictures and help hold them flat. Otherwise you'll have to buy some sort of dry mounting material for the pictures. Whether you purchase or make your picture frames you may have to stain or paint them to fit your decor. I opted for a couple different colors of green paint for my frames. One was a dark green the other a leaf green.

There's always room for a little cropping
Up close the tomatoes look bigger. Makes you think they'd go good on BLT sandwich.
Three coleus leaves were photographed and then given a texture before printing and framing.
Prickly pear cactus, rainbow cactus and Iceland poppy flowers.

Plan on changing the pictures fairly often since the colors of the ink jet printers have a tendency to fade. You don't want to keep the same garden pictures on the wall anyhow. Like your garden, which is constantly changing, so should your garden pictures. (1999)

Editor's note: Many things in the world of photography have changed. I've had two digital cameras. I no longer use my 35mm film cameras as they gather dust. The quality of my current camera's lens and five megapixel resolution makes it suitable for photographing quality pictures for The Tucson Gardener Web site and any prints I want to frame and hang on a wall. As you browse through The Tucson Gardener you may notice the quality of the pictures on this site have improved as the technology matured and became less expensive.

Some prints, up to 8 by 10 - inch, I produce on an Epson stylus inkjet printer. If I have lots of snapshots to produce I'll download them to one of the companies on the Web that produce prints.

If you have the skill, computer/software, and time to manipulate your digital images you should be able to produce quality pictures. As the photographer you need to watch your lighting, compose your picture, and get the right exposure. If you don't have to worry about purchasing your next roll of film and paying for the processing of every picture (good and bad) you can concentrate on taking quality pictures. (1999)