Photo friendly

They looked like two very interested gardeners wandering through a series of Spokane gardens last week. But they weren’t looking at the plants and garden structures to collect ideas for their own gardens. They were collecting them so they could photograph and share them with the readers of Garden Gate Magazine.

Glen Seibert, associate editor and Dave McClure, photographer, were in town to poke through 15 local gardens collecting photos for next year’s articles and video productions. As we walked through the gardens, they shared some of their tips on how to best capture your garden on film or pixels.

Light was the most important consideration for them. Light either made their shots possible or impossible. Flat light without shadows is the best because it allows all the details and color to come through and not be hidden by shadows or reflections from direct sun.

There are different qualities, or values, of light that they try to catch or use to their advantage. Early morning or late evening light is full of warm tones that soften scenes in the garden. A light overcast of clouds or fog tends to saturate colors making them more intense.

During their visit our light was a little uncooperative. They had to start one morning at 5 a.m. and work through to early afternoon when the unexpected light cloud cover disappeared. The rest of the time it was bright sunshine which limited their photographic time to early mornings and mid-evenings. Garden photography is definitely not an 8 a.m.-to 5 p.m. job.

“Use a tripod,” says McClure, “It’s the only way to get absolutely sharp focus.” Even the act of tripping the shutter or breathing can move the camera slightly and throw off the sharpness ever so slightly. This may not be too noticeable but if you enlarge the photo a great deal, it will be very obvious. Most cameras have a threaded hole in the bottom of the camera that will attach to a tripod.

Try to shoot when the air is calm. Wind, even a slight breeze, can disrupt a photo by causing movement in the primary subject.

Deciding on what to put into your picture is the next step. All encompassing shots of the garden have their place but they can be so busy that you can’t see or appreciate the details. Add some close-up shots to finish the story. Seibert tries to help his viewers, in this case his editors, see the whole point of a story in a few pictures. “Make it easy for them to see what’s happening,” he says, “If they don’t have to work too hard, then they know the magazine readers will get the point of the picture.”

Use the rule of thirds when setting up a shot. Divide the picture in your viewfinder into thirds either horizontally or vertically. Put the subject in one of those thirds and not squarely in the middle of the photo. McClure says that when he is shooting a photo that will be used as a cover photo he will leave space at the top of the picture for the “Garden Gate” title and some room on the side for the current issue’s hightlights.

Learn to look beyond your primary subject in the viewfinder for any distracting background or lighting. More pictures are ruined by the pole that is sticking out of someone’s head or the bit of bright light that the camera overcompensates for. Keep backgrounds simple so the primary subject gets all the attention.

Now, which camera do they use for their work; digital or film? McClure uses a digital format for his magazine shots. “It’s the way the industry is heading because of ease of use for digital and the cost and time involved in processing and using film.” Does he embrace digital completely? “If you want to enlarge a photo taken with a digital camera you are limited by the resolution the picture was taken with.” Low resolution digital photos will be fuzzy when you enlarge them. With film, the resolution of images is sharp even on small details of the photo.

The technology behind digital cameras is evolving rapidly though. According to Jim Snook of Huppin’s in Spokane, the arrival of the Canon EOS Digital Rebel model on the market has shifted the playing field for the digital camera. This camera has interchangeable lenses like a standard film SLR camera and costs less than $1,000 dollars. Even the average point and shoot digital cameras now have an industry standard of least three mega pixels. Pixels are the “dots” the camera records the photos in. The more pixels, the higher the resolution of the photo, the sharper an image you get.

For those like McClure who still prefer film, there are some differences to note about film. If you are using print film and have it processed using an automated system (one-hour photo type operations), “you are at the mercy of the machine and the operator. Most automated systems are calibrated to produce prints that fit an averaged set of standards.” This means that the colors can be off. McClure recommends using slide film because it records the colors more accurately.

The clarity and crispness of your picture is impacted by the ISO (formerly ASA) number of the film you are using. This number (100, 200, 400 or higher) is the indicator of speed or sensitivity of the film to light. The lower the number, the more light the film will pick up and the crisper the image that is recorded.

Photography is a wonderful way to record the progress and growth of your garden. Take a series of pictures through the year so you will remember what the garden looked like at different stages. McClure and Seibert were looking for interesting “before and after” gardens to show their readers how an idea progressed.

Use photography to record where certain plants or bulbs are planted. This way you can tell where those tulip bulbs were planted before you dig into them to put in another plant later in the year.

Take photographs of areas you want to landscape, enlarge them and use them as a base for redesigning a bed. Lay pieces of tracing paper over the photo and draw in your ideas for the new plan. If you don’t like what you are seeing, just wad the paper up and try again. Paper is a whole lot cheaper than plants.