Hello my flower loving friends,
This week I carved out time to do one of my favourite things, connect with nature through styling seasonal flowers. This simple act brings me into a deep sense of flow where the only thing I’m thinking about is the floral composition I’m working on. It was slim pickings being where we are in the month but I had hellebores flowering outside, paper whites in bloom in the house and Lilly had brought some ranunculus home from college. These few stems teamed with my ever growing collection of vintage bottles and some candles was enough to style something uplifting and bring me some peace.
Hellebores should never be cut as soon as they’ve opened, they need time to mature on the plant first and they won’t thank you for being in a hot room so just bear those things in mind before you snip them.
Visual storytelling is an integral piece to any floristry/flower business but it’s also a good way to make connections with like-minded people. I like to think that the work/visuals I put into the world will uplift or inspire somebody to have a go at creating something lovely and will lead to a connection in some way.
I get asked a lot about my camera equipment and mostly I just use my phone. I also use an Olympus Pen F with a prime lens, but mostly it’s phone. My cohesive look is done through editing images in the mobile Lightroom app so no matter what I’ve used to take the image, they all have the same mood. I create my own presets but that’s a story for another time.
As it’s white flower season, think snowdrops and hawthorn blossom, I thought I’d share my number one tip for capturing a good image. White flowers can often blow out in an image, being too bright and losing details. The trick is to adjust your light levels on your phone or camera before taking the shot. No amount of editing a photo of a bright flower will ever bring back the details, however a little edit on a slightly too dark photo will give lovely results. Remember this- you can always remove shadows in an image but you can’t create them. Adjusting brightness on the phone is a simple thing to do, just bring it down until you can see the details of the flower and it doesn’t look too bright. Then you don’t even need Lightroom, this can just be done in the phones editing settings. All you do is sharpen the image slightly, start to lift the shadows until you are happy and maybe tweak the high lights or whites if necessary. Lastly if you need to you can lift the brightness but this isn’t always necessary.
Shooting and editing white flowers like this will give you images that are silky and detailed, they often remind me of the old Dutch masters paintings.
Candle light is my answer to creating a warm contented feeling during winter. Fairy lights also get used a lot and tea and good books are my other winter time must-haves. I’m grateful for this greenhouse to shelter in whilst absorbing any light the sky is offering. I’m a fair weather gardener and it’s still much too cold for me to venture out and tidy up, I tell myself it’s good for the wildlife to have a messy garden and it’s the truth so I don’t ever feel like I need to get out there getting on with it. There will be plenty of time for that later on.
I wasn’t particularly organised last autumn so I didn’t plant any iris bulbs in pots like I usually do. I did put some in the ground though so I might lift a few to pot up so I can see them from the kitchen window. I’m also after some more hellebores for winter colour, I must remember to pop out this week to get some. It’s not too late to plant a winter/spring planter, it’s a positive act to create something that you can then watch slowly unfurl into life. I’ll leave you with that idea and some more images to get you in the mood and inspire you to bring some winter florals into your life.
Happy styling.
Emma x