I’ve never been especially fond of flowers. Don’t get me wrong— they’re pretty and everything, but I don’t stop to smell them, much less know their names. That said, flowers make wonderful subjects. They sit nice and still and always put on a great performance as I take my time fiddling around with lights, gels, and camera settings. Though I suppose any inanimate object would suffice for testing, I find flowers to have a human-like qualities to them. They have a face, a neck, and elegance for days. That’s not to say they’re an easy subject. They don’t bring anything to the table, save for their looks. They don’t have a range of dramatic poses or expressions or wardrobe changes. When working with flowers as a subject you only get out of a shoot what you put into it.
I’ve developed many of my lighting and camera techniques by testing with flowers. If I want to learn how to properly blend an out of focus frame with a sharp frame, for example, I fine tune the process first with a flower. If I want to wrap my mind around a new sheet of reflective, prismatic window film that I recently purchased, the ever-patient presence of a flower affords me the space I need to learn it. The one task I give myself when working with flowers as a subject is to try and capture them in a way that surprises myself. I don’t want to limit myself by making sure to retain their natural appearance. It’s this exercise that always leads to discovery.
