Flowerscapes

When someone asks me what kinds of things I like to photograph, I always say that about 95% of my imagery is of landscapes, 4.9% is close-up/macro and 0.1% is everything else.  The macro work I dabble with–and I certainly don’t regard myself as a great close-up photographer by any means–is mostly of flowers and other plants, but even when I do photograph flowers my propensity for the landscape invariably comes to the fore in the form of what I call “flowerscapes.”

Forest Phlox, Fort Harrison State Park, Indiana

What is a flowerscape, you ask?  Basically, a flowerscape is a landscape image where flowers are a primary element of interest.  Each of the images accompanying this entry qualifies as a flowerscape.  There are grand landscapes and intimates.  In some of the images flowers are the main point of interest; in some they are a complement.  But in all of these photographs flowers are a major component.  A flowerscape, then, is a landscape image with flowers.

Bluebells, Morton Arboretum, Illinois

What am I looking for, in compositional terms, when I shoot a flowerscape?  This isn’t going to be a particularly popular answer, I’m afraid, but…it depends.  Consideration, in large part, revolves around the nature of the other elements of the scene, and whether the flowers themselves are in an open area like a meadow or prairie or are in a more densely wooded locale.  It also depends on the size of the individual flowers and how tightly clustered they are.

Spring Wildflowers, Cove Hardwood Nature Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee

Sometimes the arrangement of elements lends itself to getting very close to a foreground element with a wide angle lens (as is the case in many of the woodland flowerscapes).  Occasionally, a more detached perspective–still with a wide angle–works better, as in the case of the Lily Meadow shot below.  On other occasions, the setting yields itself to an intimate composition, using a normal or telephoto focal length.

Lily Meadow, Obstruction Point Road, Olympic National Park, Washington

Occasionally, patterns of flower shapes and colors, scattered throughout the frame, form a kind of mosaic.  And note that light–as always when it comes to photography–is a major piece of the puzzle, be it angular sunlight, soft overcast or open shade.  The light complements, accents or flatters the elements of the images, but never detracts from them.

Sheltowee Trace, Red River Gorge, Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky

As compelling as I find flowers themselves, and as intrigued as I am when I view them through my macro lens, my eye naturally tends to see them as parts of the greater landscape, as components of a broader scene.  Even when I come face to face with a subject tailor made for close-up photography I tend to view the scene through a landscape photographer’s eyes; I see flowers, I think flowerscapes.  It’s who I am.

Purple Coneflowers, Danada Forest Preserve, Illinois