Photographing Roses

The art of low light.

I have this thing with roses, specifically garden roses. It’s the scent and texture of the petals, the way the flowers can be a little crumpled. They intrigue me from bud to flower to hip, never ceasing to amaze me when each new bloom unfurls. They have to be my favourite thing in the garden to photograph. I prefer to capture them on an overcast day so I can really see the details, the depth of the flower. Whatever I’m shooting with, camera or phone, i’ll drop the exposure (levels of light) so I can study the intricacies and appreciate how delicate each petal is.

I also like to shoot this way on my phone as it lessens the oversaturated colours that you sometimes get with phone photography. Next time you’re snapping away with your phone, try it. Open the camera, tap the screen (iPhone) and a sun will appear- slide down and the level of light will darken, lowering the exposure. It’s the most simple setting and makes the biggest difference to photos, it alters the whole feel of an image.

On Rosa Danahue (shown above), I’ve dropped the light levels as far down as I could. It’s the best way to capture the detail of pale to white flowers which can often be too blown out on normal settings. You can always lighten an image that’s too dark, but you can never darken an image that’s too light- you simply lose the detail.

Rosa Desdemona shown above is a rose I particularly like to capture this way.

I go on to further edit my images in Lightroom, it’s an art I love to play with and I’ll talk more about it in future posts.

I’m so relieved to have settled into my new routine of owning and running the shop/gallery, creating art and getting back to writing my substack. I really missed writing when everything was new and chaotic and I didn’t know if I’d find a way back to it. The answer wasn’t to simply sit and write- but to go for a walk in nature or around the garden with any camera I happen to have near me- these two things go hand in hand, camera and nature. And suddenly I was writing again. Well, sharing images mostly but you see that’s how this all started. I wanted somewhere that was slower than instagram, somewhere I could share my pictures and encourage others to slow down, maybe embrace their hobbies too. Stop the scroll. I know technically a newsletter is still a way of plugging in, but I like to think of it as something that will remind you to go and do ‘the thing’. Get outside, do some gardening, take photos, bake, sew or sow. A gentle reminder to reconnect. Photography is my reconnection to the landscape, to the outdoors. What’s yours?