Spring flowers

One of the most wonderful features of spring are the flowers. I absolutely love making images of flowers using the colors, shape, lines, etc. to create interpretations that delve in the abstract. Over the last 3 weeks I have been busy leading workshops and field sessions that introduce participants to this approach. A few years ago I realized it was rare for me to take a photograph of a single flower just by itself. I'm usually going in closer to abstract it or backing up to include multiple flowers. This just comes naturally to me. It's the way a see flowers.

The following 2 photographs are from last weekends Macro Boot Camp. The workshop was attended by a enthusiastic group of photographers that were open to different ideas that I presented to them. The first evening they were challenged with a breeze and the next morning with rain. The third session was held indoors in a more controlled environment. They had the opportunity to photograph a variety of flowers in bloom at the beautiful Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, VA. The following two image were the only photographs that I made during the workshop.

The photograph above was created while demonstrating the use of shallow depth of field and picking a focal point for the image.

This image was created indoors while demonstrating how to control backgrounds, finding a composition and deciding where to focus.

You can view more flower photography at - http://www.nikhilbahl.com/portfolios/in_bloom/index.html

This weekend I have another flower photography field session that is sold out. It is the last of the spring series but I will be announcing a couple of more field sessions to photograph summer flowers. The  Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens Field Session  already has a few registrations.

Next week I'm off to Florida to photograph a variety of avian species. I'll be doing some of my own photography before leading a workshop in Titusville and St. Augustine.

Upcoming workshops

May 6, 6pm - May 11, 11am

Florida Avian Photography Workshop (Titusville and St. Augustine, FL)

July 21, 6:30 - 9:30am
Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens Field Session (Washington D.C.)

September 8, sunrise - sunset
Digital Nature Photography One-day Workshop (Chincoteague Island, VA)

October 20, sunrise - October 21, sunset
Great Falls Digital Worflow workshop (Great Falls, VA)

November 16, 1pm - November 18, 1pm
Chincoteague Island Workshop (VA)

Photo Impressionism - Zoom & Flick

I demonstrated the swipe/blur technique at a workshop this past weekend. This technique is all about coordinating the shutter release and the movement of your camera. Sunflowers make a great subject for this technique. The first time I visited this Sunflower field I made about 250 photographs. Out of those, over 200 were abstract and photo impressionistic.

It's very easy to create photos that are abstract. It's much harder to create a photo impressionistic image, especially in the camera. Being able to understand what the subject is and yet see it rendered in a different fashion is always more intriguing.

Brookside Gardens Workshop Report

I just completed a workshop through VisArts. We spent some time photographing at Brookside Gardens. The Tulips were quite amazing! If you haven’t had a chance to visit Brookside while the Tulips are in bloom, you should.

The group was very enthusiastic and photographed non-stop for 3 hours. I demonstrated various techniques from optimal exposures to creating abstract images. The participants were fairly new to creating blurs and multiple exposures and seem to enjoy the process. Seeing their images in the critique session I was quite impressed how quickly they were able to pick up the technique and create some lovely images.

The blog image was made as the light started to get harsh. A diffuser was used to soften the light. Here are a few abstract/photo impressionistic images I made during the demonstrations and after the participants left. Click on the thumbnails to view the larger image.