February 22, 2018  Also please check out Competitions on the Blog Site

Recently, I set up a small area in the garage where I can set up still life’s and flowers.  It is fairly simple to do as all that you need is a black cloth, a mirror, devices to hold the flowers, and a tripod for the camera.  I mostly use a Nikon 750 full frame with a 90mm macro lens.  This lens only gives a very small depth of field so I use an aperture of 18-22 to increase the depth of field.  In addition, I use live view to zoom in and then manual focus.  All of these things are difficult to use outdoors because even a slight breeze will blur the photo, plus you almost always have distracting backgrounds.

The first two photos are from dried roses with the second photo on a mirror surface.

The next photos are of a fresh rose with the second one a reflection from the mirror.

The next photo is of the rose dipped in seltzer water.  The bubbles make an interesting effect.   You will need to click on the More to go to the blog to see it and more flowers.

The orange flowers are Lion’s Tail, a perennial, that I happened upon by chance at the local Lowe’s.  It can reach 4-6 feet without trimming.  The red flower is an individual boganvia, which grows like weeds and planted along expressways.

Finally, two more flowers, although from my yard are found as wild flowers in the desert.  The first orange ones are called globe mallow and the blues ones are a variety of phacelia. The first image is actually a mirror reflection turned in a vertical direction.