Subjects to seek out this month: flowers
The 1st of March has been celebrated in Wales and elsewhere as St David’s day since the 12th Century and one of the traditional ways to mark the occasion is to wear a daffodil. Which is my segue into talking about this month’s suggested subject, low growing (wild)flowers. It is still a while before the trees’ leaves burst properly and only the hardiest of blossoms are daring to begin their emergence, so our eyes turn to the ground instead.
This is a popular subject so there is little doubt almost everyone has taken such images before so let me just offer a few brief ideas to perhaps help broaden your approach.
- Use a mirror. I love the surrealism of reflections in photos anyway but for a small subject such as these a mirror can offer a scientific or artistic advantage. A small hand mirror placed to allow a view looking up into a bunch of snowdrops perhaps showing the structure of a woodland canopy overhead sounds like a recipe for success.
- Use a wide angle lens (which by the way includes every phone camera) and use a low viewpoint. Wide angle perspectives really distort the relative size of subjects close to the camera and will exaggerate their height within the scene. It’s an unusual view and it’s fun!
- This really should be reserved for your own flowers or those you have permission to pick but taking a few flowers home to play with on the scanner opens up a whole new avenue of exploration (and brings you in from the cold). Place a box over the plant which has been put directly on the flatbed of the scanner, you may wish to paint the inside of this box. Tips include aiming to keep dust to a minimum and trying a variety of angles and arrangements.
Did you know?
The familiar saying ‘Mad as a March Hare’ is said to stem from the distinctive boxing behaviour that Brown Hares exhibit in late winter. Some lucky folk in Northumberland have already taken pictures of this action so it’s certainly not too early for you to catch it happening. Rather than it being two males fighting as is often supposed this will be a female fending off unwanted attention during the breeding period. Personally, I think their crazy eyes probably helped the phrase seem particularly fitting.
