BRASHLEY PHOTOGRAPHY

When Anne asked me to do a guest post for the LAPC, I felt so humbled. As many of you who follow my blog know, one subject I just love to photograph flowers.

When pondering on a subject for this week’s challenge… I thought about how flowers are soft and gentle. And how they make us feel alive and blessed.

To achieve the softness effect in my floral images, I lower the clarity of the flower and the background and then bring in little bits of more clarity here and there to make the photo pop.

Primarily, I love my Canon EF-S60mm f/2.8 Macro Lens because it adds so much depth of field and a softness to my images.

A few weeks ago I did a Viola flower for my Mid-Week Monochrome Challenge. Here is the colour version.

As you can see from the Lightroom edit below, the lens did all the softness work, and I just increased the clarity a little for the centre of the flower. You can achieve this effect with any software that allows to make adjustments to your image with either a radial filter or brush. Just that slight increase in clarity has made the middle pop. Many phones have a macro lens setting on them… and many cameras, also have a preset macro setting which you can use. If there is not enough light, then use your camera’s built-in flash.

If you don’t have the use of a macro setting or a macro lens … then lower your aperture to the lowest setting your lens will go to (the widest aperture). I have achieved the same effect using an aperture of f/3.5, creating softness using my photo editing software.

Even though roses have thorns which are harsh, their petals are all soft and billowy. From the gallery of images below, you can see the softness I like to make to flowers, so, they look light as a feather.

You don’t have to stick to flowers, landscapes and architecture are also ideal subjects for adding a little bit of softness to them. Lowering the opacity can make a woodland image, for instance, look dreamy. That is why I have a tendency to add softness to all my images. As I do love dreamy looking images.

For this weeks’ challenge, show us how you soften your images. You don’t have to stick to flowers, landscapes and architecture are also ideal subjects. By lowering the clarity and creating softness in those areas frames the subject in an image, be it a tree, path, bridge, even a door or house or just a dreamy looking image. 

I’ve enjoyed preparing this challenge and look forward to your responses. Please remember to link to this post and use the Lens-Artists tag. Ann-Christine will be challenging us next week. Be sure to look for her post. For more information on joining the challenge each week, check here.