Postcard from Leavenworth – Iris in Bloom

Now, we are back in Leavenworth again, but this time in the Spring rather than the Autumn. This area is a treasure trove of photographic possibilities. In fact, this photo was shot about 75 feet from the autumn leaves photo in the last blog.

But, as you see, we moved the camera in close to capture the priceless beauty of this purple Iris. But, like all our photos shown so far in this series, we still have a foreground and a background…and in flower shots, the background is critical and must be selected with care, for it provides the frame for the flower. In this case, the green background worked perfectly. Many photographers who want to shoot a flower like this but don’t have a good background, will often place a black cloth behind the flower so all you see is the flower. Use any method you want but be aware that a good background behind a flower is absolutely essential.

Now, you will notice that much of this photo is out of focus. That is the price you pay for extreme close-ups. As you get closer, the depth of field diminishes to only a very small area, even using a small f-stop. And when you stop down the camera, your shutter speed slows down. That is why photos like this are best done with a tripod.

But short depth of field can also work in your behalf as you want the users eye to focus on the main subject. The eye will ignore the out-of-focus elements in the picture, but they still need to enhance the in-focus elements. Again, to get proper focus, work like this is best done with a tripod.

I did two other things to make this picture work better…I darkened the green grass behind the Iris, and I used a very soft white vignette filter to really bring the eye directly into this one iris flower, ignoring the the rest of the iris flower around it.

I hope you like this photo and that it gives you a taste of Spring that gets closer every day.