Just made a trip to the plant store to spruce up the back yard for Summer. PIC HEAVY

[flamin lib]

What better place to shoot pictures of flowers than a nursery? All made with a Zuiko legacy 50 mm 1.8 (equivalent to a 100mm)and on-camera diffused flash.

[Mira]

1. Orchids - Daisies - Hibiscus - that's as far as I get. And I would be damn proud

to have taken any of them. How gorgeous and what a yard you will have if you took half of them home.
I know what that straggler plant is, but it's hard to spell anyway, and the name won't come right now, yes it does, Bougainvillea.
I'm glad you posted this, it makes me so happy to think all of it is just in reach, except I can't take photos like that so I must leave that part to you.

[flamin lib]

3. It's easy.

Here's my helper holding the set up I use for on-the-fly closeups. It's not possible to use the smallest apreture for depth of field and hand hold the camera, so I shoot everything with flash. The diffuser is made of foam board and covered with packing plastic. It takes the small pin-point light source the flash makes and makes it much larger so the light is soft and wraps around the subject.

This is what it looks like (helper not included):


The lens focuses to about 18 inches (6x9 inch field of view) and at that distance the light comes from above or to the side depending on horizontal of vertical format. Focus the lens to the minimum distance, lean in until it's in focus and shoot.

For studio type shots I have a 24x18x4 inch box covered on one side with tracing vellum. It acts like a light tent, but more directional. No pic of that but imagine the box with a flash stuck in one end. It takes a 3 square inch light source and makes it into 430 square inches.

[Mira]

4. This may get lengthy, but I hope not.

First: the kid is a dream of a boy. He is not clueless at all, he is already involved and will grow up with beauty, how to create it, how to enhance it, and how to appreciate it. Like Mother's milk.

Exposure is everything, and then the children will sort out what fits their talents and needs and create their future.

My kid, being around me raising him in the graphic arts field (though talented for math, really) is a graduate of the NCSchool of the Arts, in visual arts. He proceeded to create a program for sign makers, how to price their work. I am a sign maker, and he watched me struggle with pricing, and programming came naturally, so that is what he did.
www.estimatesoftware.com
He knocked the competition off their game, and is quite an authority now. The economy is bad for him, but he'll find a way.

His kid, being around him, is now the first child of a graduate in the visual Arts High School program at the same school. And on it goes.

Never, ever, underestimate how you influence your children on all levels. If a kid can learn to walk and talk at two, imagine what all goes in that brain and gets recorded.

Just sayin..... the picture set me off.
And for the explanation of how you did it - I will put it in a special file "how to really take photos". I'm serious. I will have more time, and I will study.

[JeffR]

2. ! ! !

:o

Wow!