Was It Valentine's Day?

It has been a while since you've seen any photographs of fresh flowers up here at Eric Mahannah Photography.  That's what happens when you live in an area where flowerbeds all over are covered with several centimeters of snow and any kind of life that dares stick it's head of it's snowy bed is quickly reminded by -20something degree weather that doing snow was not a very bright idea.  That's what is fun about February.  If you can hold out a couple of days, you can get flowers at very cheap prices around the 15th of the month, every single year!  I'm just kidding...or am I?  Only My Lovely Assistant and myself know for sure, but the fact that you're seeing them here, or more accurately, the fact that I'm still able to type today, should let you know everything you need to know about when they were delivered.  As with last year, I needed to find a nice way to photograph these flowers.  I still haven't invested in studio lighting so I had the choice of either using my Speedlite flash or going with that big bright light in the sky, otherwise known as the sun.  I chose to go with option #2.  The sun was shining bright this morning so I made like Pebbles and Bamm Bamm by opening up the blinds and letting the sunshine in.  With the lighting now taken care of, I needed to find a nice background.  No matter how nice these flowers are, the effect would kind of have been lost if you were seeing a far off view of my kitchen counter and tables in the background.  I'm not really known as a Mr. Do-It-Yourself, but I'm kind of proud of the little solution I came up with.  I took a couple of chairs from the kitchen and placed them behind the vase.  I then took My Lovely Assistant's blanket and draped it over the chairs.  Voila!  Instant backdrop.  I felt that the grey blanket would serve well in bringing out the colours of the flowers, as well as blocking out the view of the kitchen sink.  These photographs come from my second shooting session with the bouquet.  A second was necessary since I had once again left my camera at ISO 1600 after having taken some photographs last night.  Atleast I spotted this before I had put everything away.  However, I didn't bother to re-shoot a couple of close-up shots that I had taken a little bit earlier as there didn't appear to be any of the grain that would usually be associated with such a high ISO in the photos.  One of these days, I promise, I'll learn to reset my ISO before putting my camera back into the bag.  Either that, or I'll have to invest in a label maker and print the message directly on my camera.  The first photograph was taken at f/13, 1/80sec, ISO 100 at 34mm.  I needed a small aperture like f/13 to make sure that all of the flowers would be in focus.  The second photograph was taken at f/7.1, 1/160sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  I used a slightly larger aperture, but still small enough to keep everything in focus.  Next up are the close-ups.  The first picture of the rose was shot at f/4, 1/1600sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm.  I focused on the middle of the rose and you can really see the details in the rose's petals while everything goes gently out of focus all around the edges.  I used the same technique for the other flower, which was shot at f/4, 1/5000sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm.  One adjustment that I did with the fourth photograph was that I rotated it 90degrees clockwise and then cropped the image so that the middle of the flower would be brought down a little closer to the bottom of the image.  I felt that It looked better that way as it bring more attention to the center of the flower, making it more of the star of the photo instead of just sharing the screen with the petals.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and buy myself a label maker.