Shadow Play

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When I photograph a garden that I’m visiting, I obviously have little control over the light. On a sunny day, the contrast between the highlights and the shadows can be huge. Sometimes I can find a position where the shaded areas in the image won’t matter. Occasionally, for a close-up of a plant, I may use a small folding reflector, or a piece of white card or paper, to reflect more light into the shadows. (I don’t carry a flash because I try to carry as little weight as possible, apart from the camera.)

The alstroemerias in the photograph above were growing by trees that shaded them at times, including the time I was there. Different visits would possibly give the opportunity to photograph them without the shadows, but I like the rather ‘jungly’ feel that they give. (I think it suits the look of the flowers.) Those shadows also tell the viewer a little bit about the environs of the plant.

There was a lot more shade to deal with in my attempts to photograph Henstead Exotic Garden. The massive amount of foliage of all the palms, bamboos, tree ferns and other unusual trees and shrubs made it dark below. That meant it was difficult to get good results when photographing some of the plants at ground level. Instead, it was much easier to turn the camera upwards to capture the pattern of light and shade through the leaves.

Another patch of deep shade (photo above) made photographing these autumn crocuses come down to luck. Like the alstroemerias, a visit at a different time of day could have moved the shadows away from them. As it was, fortune smiled and there was just enough light to catch this shadowy pair against a dark background. (With a photograph in these conditions, I often find that I have to adjust the highlights downwards when making the RAW conversion. The range of contrast can be too much for the camera to capture otherwise.)

I had similar conditions to deal with when photographing the rhododendron above. It’s a shrub that is happy growing in the shade of taller trees, often where there will be bright sunlight falling through deep shadow…again a time when I have to rescue the highlights during RAW processing. (So much easier than during my days of using slide film!)

The bright green of the gunnera (below) attracted my attention, with the dark veins blocking the light that was coming through the huge leaves. For this image, I wanted the shadows to be dark so that they would contrast with the well-lit areas of the leaves. I’d like to come back to this spot on another sunny day and experiment a bit further…playing with shadows can be fun!