Garden Photos: Expert Advice

I recently toured this lovely rural garden in Sudbury, MA (designed by Laura Kuhn of Arlington, MA) -- where the local chapter of APLD was holding a hands-on workshop focusing on the right way to photograph gardens. 

Pro photographer Rich Pomerantz led us through the basics, then set us free to roam around in the late afternoon sun and shoot the scene.

This photo of the house was taken from some distance away -- across a huge lawn and from the back side of a planting bed. The shot was taken through plant material, which Rich called "an effective way to display the house."

The photo from the porch (click on it for a larger view) is not a winning shot.  Taken standing on the porch of the house out into the landscape, it's another way to frame the view and it also puts the viewer into the photo. (ie, you can imagine yourself standing on the porch, looking out).

But Rich says (and I agree), that the "composition is not great, it's too busy, and the horizon is tilted." But one positive note: he says the general idea behind the photo is good.

This shot was also taken from out in the landscape, and Rich says it's composed quite well because it "uses the path to create a leading line from the lower left corner that brings the eye into the frame and down the path."

Rich reminded us about many of the simple rules that can make your images more effective.

One is the "rule of thirds" :  either three main elements in every photo, three points that can be connected (like a triangle), or dividing the picture into three parts ie, the horizon line shouldn't appear half way down the image, but either in the lower or upper third of the composition.

Rich likes aperture priority best (instead of shutter speed) because it lets you choose whether the entire image is in focus or whether, for instance, the rose in the foreground is sharp, while the background is somewhat blurred.  Of course, when a strong wind is blowing and you don't want a blurry image, then you have to use a fast shutter speed to stop the action.

In this shot, I was trying to get a good image of the paving pattern, but, as Rich says, "it's disembodied from the context."  I should have included part of the door or building next to it, which would have given it some scale and a reference point.  OR, I should have "used the geometry more effectively," OR shot the image straight down so that the pattern would have become an abstraction.

Well, finally, this shot was among my favorites of all the 45 or so that I took that afternoon.  It was taken through the window on the opposite side of the porch, and, as one of my colleagues noted, I was lucky that the window was clean.

Rich said it was "a great way to show the homeowner's view of the garden."  That's not exactly what I had in mind when I looked through the camera, but if I'd actually put more thought into it, I might have come to the same conclusion.

SO ... the most effective way to shoot good garden photos is to walk around the site, decide which elements are the special ones you want to capture, and then think carefully before you press the shutter.  Look at the elements from different angles and different views, and don't shoot it unless it's what you want.  Digital cameras make it easy to shoot images at will, but you'll save a lot of time deleting the bad ones if you take the time you need to compose a winning shot.

Rich Pomerantz teaches photo workshops, as well as photographing gardens and writing books. He can be contacted through his website.

(Photos ©Jane Berger)