by Christopher Chatterton

Created on: July 15, 2008

Tips for photographing wildflowers:

There are a myriad of spectacularly coloured and diversely occurring flowers of all shapes and sizes found on every continent on earth. This evolution of wildflowers (used to attract visiting bees and insects), gives us a wonderful potential for creating memorable compositions for our wall or portfolio.

For people with physical disabilities or the elderly, the sedate more composed nature of wildflower photography is more achievable, as oppose to the more intense shooting associated with sports or motion photography.

The great thing about wildflowers is that they grow on road sides, along railway verges, along river banks, in alpine meadows, in gardens and window boxes so even people in apartments several storeys high can compose shots of them.

1. Choosing your flowers

One mans weed is another mans flower and vice versa. What many people call 'weeds' are actually wildflowers that occur naturally among our prize- winning rose bushes; so a weed is really a persistent plant that gardeners don't like. Effectively it's down to personal choice which flowers you wish to start taking pictures of.

1.1. Sourcing your wildflowers

If you like a particular flower but don't have it in your garden you could sow it and wait until next year, but where's the fun in that, you want pictures now right?
One option might be to ask a friendly neighbour if you could kindly spend a morning photographing their flowerbeds or go to a local park of garden centre.

If you are feeling particularly energetic and adventurous you might like to venture a bit further and find the more rare species off the beaten track. Wild orchids often grow in natural meadows that have had no man-made fertiliser application and their vibrant colours make striking compositions set against the greens of their natural habitat.

Once you've decided upon your chosen flower, you might want to catalogue it on your computer or label it beneath the picture in the frame, like a natural history specimen.
To do this you will need a good wildflower key, which will take you step-by- step through the process of identifying your flower by means of a process of elimination; ruling out features of plants with similar characteristics until you find the one you have.
An excellent wildflower key I can recommend is "The Wild Flower Key" (2006 rev. ed.) by Francis Rose, which is available for around 13 in the UK or $40 is the US.

2.Packing your kit

Depending on whether you want a jaunt out into the garden or trek

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>