Summer is a great time to photograph flowers, especially if you have a botanical garden nearby. St. Albert Botanical Park is truly a hidden gem and is only about a five minute drive from my home. It’s easily accessible, open 24 hours, maintained beautifully, and free! What’s not to like about it.

I like to go early in the morning when the light is still soft and there’s seldom anyone about, other than a few bees collecting pollen. In fact, by the time visitors start showing up in any numbers, the lighting is starting to get too harsh and I’m packing up my gear to go home for breakfast.

Most of the images I create are closeups of flowers or parts of flowers. It’s a great way to get up close and personal with the flowers and to see them in ways that you don’t necessarily see when viewing a flower bed as a whole. Having said that, the mixture of colors and textures in a flower bed can also make a compelling image.

Here is a sampling of some of the photos I have taken recently.

In addition to more “normal” photos, I have also taken the opportunity of practicing various techniques that create more abstract images.

In these two images, the flowers seem to have a soft glow about them.

This next image also has a lovely softness about it. A combination of a soft pink color combined with only the tips of a couple of petals being in focus created this effect. When done for artistic effect, deliberately having some (or most) of your image out-of-focus can create some very pleasing results.

The following image of a lily is definitely more abstract. I loved the blend of cooler colors with a couple of splashes of warmer yellow and orange.

The final image has more of an impressionism feel to it. This effect is actually created in-camera. I loved the mixture of colors and the S-curve of this flower bed.

Now I just have to find some time to get back to the gardens to see what is currently blooming!