Can you see the bloom

Last time we talked about Framing your picture.  Here is a little discussion on really bringing out the detail in your picture.

So we are starting with the same blooming plum tree as we did in the framing tutorial.

You obviously do no see how pretty the blooms are in this picture above.

In my framing of the picture I got a nice picture of the tree and its blooms, but I didn't really get the detail of the a bloom in the picture.  So lets get a little more closer to the tree to get more detail.

This picture provides a lot of detail to the blooms.  They are very pretty, and abundant.  Its a nice picture, but once again, there is a little issue of framing.  There's some fence and dirt in the background.  Really......who wants a picture of dirt?

Playing with aperture in your camera can really create some nice pictures and focus attention to what you want to see.  In using aperture, the higher the number, the more that is in focus.  the lower the number the less that is in focus.  For point and shoot cameras, the portrait mode does this to the best of its ability.  And usually the low end of the focus is limited by the camera's lens.  For these pictures I ended up using my Canon TSi with the 50mm f1.8 lens.  Its commonly called the nifty fifty because its a low cost lens that you can pick up for about $100.

Lets look at how dramatic only one bloom looks.  I lowered the f-stop (apeture) to 1.8, tightened up the frame and got a picture of a bloom.

Much better than the first shot for a few reasons.  One the dirt is gone!  Two the fence is gone!  Three your attention is drawn to a single bloom for you to look at.  You attention in this picture is drawn to the center of the picture to see the two blooms that are really in focus.  There is a lot of detail, and I lowered the apeture in the picture to blur out the back ground, effectively getting rid of the fence and dirt.  But the picture is stagnant.  The limb goes out of focus at both ends of the branch, no dynamic exists in the picture.  You see the center and you get stuck.

Here is another picture of the blooms.  I played with the apeture to get enough focus to pick up a couple blooms in good focus.  In this picture, you see the bloom at the end of the limb. It provides detail to the bloom, and provides some dynamic to the picture.  As you look at the picture, you notice the two crossing branches, and your eye travels up each to its blooms.  And then you jump to the other branch to look at the other bloom, as you look at the picture, your eye keeps doing a figure 8 as you continue looking at the picture. 

Although I liked the blooms in focus and the detail of only one bloom, I really wanted to capture the quantity of blooms on the plum tree.  This picture below shows only one branch with a ton of blooms on it.  

Once again I lowered the apeture to 1.8 and shot the first branch with a little more angle so that I picked up the blooms on the end of the branch, and it shows the blooms slowly fall out of focus into a white fuzz.  This time, I removed the background by decreasing the apeture to blur out the background and only bring into focus what I want you to pay attention to.  This picture conveys that there are a lot of blooms, the detail of the blooms, and provide some dynamic of the picture from left to right.  The picture still falls out of focus on the front and back of the picture, but the curve in the branch provides some nice shape to the subject. 

So, just play with your camera, take more shots than you probably think you need.  Make adjustments, and have fun.  Although I used this tree as my subject, remember it applies to anything you snap with your camera.

Go out have fun and take pictures to capture your memories.