A few weeks ago I took the camera out into the garden. It had been a while since I was inspired to pick it up but the tulips were in full bloom and I wanted to see if I could capture them. The light that day was just right: not too bright to glare but just enough that I didn’t have to play around with the ISO setting too much. Even more importantly in my garden was that the breeze was only slight. Our garden can get very windy which makes photographing flowers a complete pain - they never stand still so you either need a lot of time and patience to wait for the gaps in between gusts or you need to find an angle where you can hold it still without also getting your hand in the photograph. Today was good though, the wind was light and the tulips stood nice and still as though they were ready for a photo shoot. I thought I would share with you the process I went through to get the photograph and take it through the stages to making a new print for my Etsy shop.
I bought and planted these bulbs last autumn and just kept all my fingers crossed that the local wildlife wouldn’t dig them up, the soil conditions were good enough for them to grow and that they would actually flower. It feels incredible to see them here in the garden, all of them flowering and looking exactly like they did in the catalogue. There are some that are a deep jewel like purple and the colour is divine. The shape of these Swan Tulips though has fascinated me since I first saw a photograph of them. Their petals split out and really are reminiscent of feathers - their name fully lives up to their beauty.
I took multiple photographs, trying different angles; some macro type shots from above, some full on to the side and then one where it was mostly focused on the flower but the stem was just showing too. When I first started out with photography I thought that the “right” photograph was the one that you thought about, set up for and then took in the first shot. If there are photographers who do that then wow but in my experience it takes an awful lot of experimenting and multiple shots before you get there. And even when you are there, there’s an editing process to go through.
Lightroom is my go to editing software - I find it really intuitive to use and I like that I can work on my laptop or my phone depending on how much time I have (there’s that time word again). I chose a matte preset for this, flattening out the image because I like that soft textural feeling it gives. I used a mask on the petals to lighten them slightly and even out the white balance. On screen it looked lovely; the background was velvety dark and the petals contrasted perfectly. Experience has taught me though that the on-screen version doesn’t always translate when it’s printed so I ran the first print.
Experience was right; on paper the background was so dark that it made the petals look like they were floating around all by themselves, divorced from any body of the plant. There were also a couple of flecks of soil that had got caught on the petals. I didn’t really notice them on screen but on an A4 print they stood out from a mile away.
Back to the editing; I removed the black flecks and started playing with the background. I needed to lighten it enough that you could see the stems but desaturate the green so that it didn’t detract from the darker tones I wanted. The petals still had to remain centre stage. I upped the orange in the background a little as it felt like it gave it some warmth. Second test print.
No, the orange didn’t give the desired warmth at all - it just made the background too busy and detracted from the tulip. The petals themselves looked perfect though. I took the orange back out, leaving just a lightness where they had been. Third test print run. This is the one - the petals take centre stage and you get the glimpses of the structure that supports it. The background is velvety dark but with just enough variation in shapes and tones to create interest without distracting. The matte makes it feel soft and textural, graceful like the swan that gives these tulips its name.
Flower prints are available now in my Etsy shop and this one will be added soon.