What could be easier? Take your camera, find a flower, point, click, sit back and wait for the oohs, the aahs and National Geographic to come knocking on your door. Wait. What’s that? That didn’t happen? Perhaps, then, you might consider a few pointers?

Passion. Let’s be honest. It is hard to walk up to a flower, shrug your shoulders about it, whip off a quick snapshot and turn out a masterpiece. If you are not passionate about what you are doing, well, that shows. If flowers are not your thing, don’t worry and don’t feel like you have to concentrate on them. Instead, concentrate on what you do enjoy. The results will be more than worth it to you. Naturally, this applies to more than flowers, but since we’re talking about flowers, well, it seems relevant here, too.

Light. Not every day is bright and sunny and it is easy to think to oneself that when it is a cloudy or overcast day that your flower opportunity just went out the window. In truth, nothing could be further from the truth! A cloudy day gives us something very, very powerful: diffused light. And diffused light means that the likelihood of harsh (and unappealing) shadows is great reduced. Your camera can easily compensate for the lower light levels and yes, it will turn out stunning photos. In fact, odds are they will turn out even better than if you had a very bright day. Of course, you can add your own light with your flash, but that’s another article.

Angle and Background: Flowers are interesting in that they grow where they happen to be growing and if you want a photo, you will be coming to them. Unless they just happen to be in a flowerpot and you can just happen be able to rearrange them, you’ll have to work a little harder to get that perfect shot. That’s OK, though, because this is your opportunity to create beautiful work. This this opportunity to look at your subject, and definitely don’t forget to look behind it, either! You might have to kneel down to find just the right angle that makes the difference between a simple grab and go shot and a stunner. If you can, walk around the plant, looking for the best flower and the best background. Speaking of background: it is best to keep your background simple and uncluttered whenever possible. Be aware of ugly things sticking straight up from the flower. The last thing you want is a flower growing right into a fence post… and by moving slightly to the left or right that very same fence post now becomes some wonderful framing. Bottom line: don’t settle for the first angle you see. Move around as well as up and down, paying attention to the background.

Shoot. What? You thought that by merely reading about flower power things magically get better? Ah, if that were only the case. Go get your camera, find that flower, and off you go! And when you get that stunner, let us know on our FaceBook Fan Page.

Happy Shooting!