..........Vol. 6 No. 2..........Vol. 6 No. 2
Photographers, Learn from Daylily Portraits by Stephen Blecher
Ken M. Gregory
Sometimes more of a good thing is better!
With all of the photography plus additional pages this year in the new Eureka Daylily, there was still not enough room to publish as many photos as we would have liked. Here are some more stunning cultivar images from photographer Stephen Blecher featured in the new Guide.
While we featured him in the new 2007 Eureka Daylily Reference Guide, these photos were not used in print. See many additional photos by Stephen and other photographers in print with your 2007 Eureka Daylily Reference Guide. Place your order now for your copy along with the Supplemental CDs. Click this link for all the details on ordering your 2007 Eureka Daylily.
Just click on the "thumbnail" photo links below to view the larger image.
We've featured Stephen for several years now and his photography provides excellent examples of how to capture the characteristics of cultivars at the same time as his images present well-crafted photo compositions.
This photos of H. 'Baby Blues' and H. 'Blackberry Candy' demonstrate many aspects of good cultivar photography. The placing of two blooms in the image gives the Eureka reader a chance to see multiple angles of the flower's character.
Also, Stephen has successfully captured the subtle hues in the first. These pastels would have been lost by many photographers who would have shot this image in bright sun and washed out the color. I always carry a light umbrella with me on sunny days to cast some shade on the blooms to prevent the bleached colors.
While the cultivar is not the youngest kid on the playground, the photo of H. 'Spiderman' puts the bloom to its best as the photo illustrates a multiple view of both front and side perspectives.
As I used to tell my photography students at the college where I taught, "You will sometimes have to crawl like a worm or climb a ladder and look down like a hawk to get the angle you need for the best shot."
Stephen has shown in both H. 'Berry Patch' and H. 'Spiderman' some critical information about the cultivars' ability to withstand drops of water on the bloom. The water adds texture to the photo as well as tell the daylily collector about these plants' garden strengths on rainy days.
As you walk around the garden and consider the photos, what other effects on the bloom can you demonstrate with your photography? I was shooting a beautiful iris garden in the central valley of California one year when a neighboring farmer decided to plow his acerage at the same time as we were touring the adjacent garden and at the moment a fierce wind kicked up. In just a few minutes, the bloom was shredded. I tried to capture the dust storm and bloom but the result was just too sad to publish.
Let's compare clump shots. Look at H. 'Brookwood Lee Causey', H. 'Siloam Bo Peep' and compare these with H. 'Fooled Me'. While they're all very good photos, the first two make better compositions for illustrating the qualities of the plants.
In the third of these images, the blooms are more crowded together and this can confuse the viewer as they all cluster together into one merged mass. They even seem to pushing each other over to be in the photo as they crush petals with their proximity. However, when you look at H. 'Brookwood Lee Causey' you get both the impact of a clump of blooms at the same time as you clearly see the individuality of each bloom.
Now, compare this to the photo of H. 'Little Joy'. This photo demonstrates how you can simplify a clump shot at the same time as you capture the drama of all of those blooms in one photo. Here Stephen has used the design principal of dominance. He makes this a better composition at the same time as he makes the qualities of the cultivar easier to observe. With the third and lower bloom overlapped by the dominate scape, it does not compete for attention in the composition while it does add additional color to the image.
I think that this is even better illustrated with Stephen's photo of H. 'Dragon King'. Here you have the interest of a clump shot but with the overlapping by the front and dominant bloom which does simplify and clarify the composition. But the overlapped bloom also gives the viewer a glance at what this cultivar looks like from the side view.
I don't use many single-bloom shots each year in Eureka but I do need some. Looking at H. 'Raspberry Winter' and H. 'Bountiful Candy', you see some good examples of this kind of image. We have all seen too many single-bloom, flat-faced photographs of daylilies in catalogs and other publications. That's one reason that I've always avoided using them when possible.
But with any layout, I need some variety and I always need a few vertical images from each contributing photographer.
The two cultivar photos mentioned have done more than the conventional straight-on photos that I object to. You can position the bloom in the composition so that it is slightly shifted and you see some dimensionality.
Also, you can have buds, scapes and leaves to better show the nature and health of the plant. I reject many photos for submission where the photographer has cropped the bloom so tightly that you can't see any other part of the plant but the bloom and as you look at the image you feel like you're falling down the throat. Step back a little bit with your camera. Show what the whole plant looks like at the same time as you give me some optional room for layout and cropping purposes.
Enjoy these additional daylily portraits by Stephen and learn from his successes. Then, plan your garden visits, take some great photographs and submit your work for possible publication in the next Eureka.
Click on this link to learn more about submitting photography to Eureka.
See many more photos by our featured contributing photographers plus so much more in the 2007 Eureka Hosta/Iris Reference Guide, available now. Order your's today for $32.95 plus S/H and the double supplemental CD set for $19.95 plus S/H.
