Prickly pear demonstrating lighting technique. Photo by: Allan Wyatt, copyright, 2013

The sold out 2013 Wildflower Photo Workshop was held on March 30. Topics included lighting techniques (as demonstrated by the above image courtesy of participant Allan Wyatt), depth of field, dealing with midday light and a bonus painting with light demonstration.

The first half of the day was spent at Red Belly Ranch and the afternoon saw us visiting a couple of nearby locations with a variety of Texas spring wildflowers.

I enjoyed seeing everybody take the tools and ideas from the workshop and put them to use. With 10 people wandering about it was amazing the variety of images. Each person’s images were a unique expression of their particular vision. Participant, Barbara H., made the statement, “Macro photography is like going down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.” As proof she captured an image that took me several days to figure out where it originated.

Sandyland bluebonnet (Lupinus subcarnosus), Fayette county Texas. Photo by Jeff Parker, copyright, 2013

This Sandyland bluebonnet image demonstrates use of a large aperture to blur the background, rendering the grass behind the flower as painterly streaks.

Light painting at cemetery near LaGrange, Texas. Photo by Jeff Parker, copyright, 2013.

As the afternoon wound down most folks were tired and headed home — after all we’d been at it for nearly 12 hours! However, a couple of participants were in Energizer Bunny mode and accepted my offer of a light painting demonstration. The light painting was not on the schedule but I thought it would be fun for us to do. We headed to an old cemetery near LaGrange and waited for dark. The light painting wrapped up a long, but fruitful day.

GEAR for WILDFLOWER PHOTOGRAPHY:

Adorama:
* For portraits: Tamron Macro lens
* For scenes: Canon EF 28-135 mm lens
* Camera – either Canon 7D or Canon 5D Mark III (both work fine for this purpose)
* Gitzo Tripod (for scenes)
* Wimberly Plamps

B&H:
* For portraits: Tamron Macro lens
* For scenes: Canon EF 28-135 mm lens
* Camera – either Canon 7D or Canon 5D Mark III (both work fine for this purpose)
* Gitzo Tripod (for scenes)
* Wimberly Plamps