Photographing Flowers for Creating Floral Art
How to Photograph Flora for Vibrant Botanical Paintings
Sep 22, 2009
Photographing flowers for painting offer the artist great inspiration, and yet quite often, the resultant artwork may be disappointing. The fault may often lie with the reference material available.
Flower Photography for Floral Painting
Working from a photograph is an excellent way of getting to grips with painting flowers. But the photograph must contain the following criteria:
- Good definition is vital. A grainy photograph robs the artist of detail and one who strives for realism must never guesswork, or the painting will not depict an authentic view of flowers.
- Taking several photographs at one sitting will increase the artist’s chance of finding one winning photograph if the others do not quite hit the mark. It often happens that the photographer may get further inspired during a photographing session.
- The artist who strives for the close-up type of realism resembling that of Georgia O’Keefe must get quite close up to the subject matter. Too far away and the flowers will be too small to depict.
- A focal point could be created by juxtaposing contrasting colours against one another. A composition of flowers consisting of mostly blue flowers will be galvanised by placing a red object next to a blue flower.
The Background in Flower Photography
- Be aware of what lies in the background. No one wants to see the corner of a washing machine behind a beautiful bowl of flowers. Some of the most subdued backgrounds, such as a garden fence can be very effective (fig 1 and fig 2).
- Images of flowers abound with those within their natural habitat of the garden, but the artist may consider other situations. A potted plant by the kitchen window may cast long shadows on the wall or table. Flowers may be viewed through a frosted window or partly behind a curtain (fig 3). The artist may also try different angles, such as looking down upon the flowers.
- Taking flowers out of their normal context gives them extra meaning. Juxtaposing them alongside an unlikely object such as a goldfish bowl, a rusty old engine or a similarly outlandish object will give flowers extra meaning and suggest interesting contrasts in texture.
The Lighting of the Flower Photo
- Artificial light robs flowers of their natural beauty and may leave an unnatural cast. Flash photography must be avoided. But natural daylight, or better still, sunlight will provide interesting abstract-like shapes of light, shadow and splashes of vibrant colour (fig 4 and fig 5). This can be also be achieved in a still life setting indoors.
- The direction of the light will add emphasis to the flowers’ form. The harsh light of midday will contrast starkly against deep shadows, leaving the colour of the flowers almost bleached out. The sunlight of the evening may increase colour saturation and cause the light to skid over surfaces offering abstract qualities to the lengthening shadows.
How to Paint Flowers from a Photo
Flowers such as sunflowers, petunias, poppies and roses offer the artist lots of inspiration, as can be seen from Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings. But taking consideration when photographing flowers is likely to result in sound reference material from which the artist may produce botanical art or an inspirational painting of flowers. Deliberating over the lighting, the background and also taking flowers out of their normal context will pay off when the artist comes to use the photograph as reference material from which to create a painting of flowers.
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