I’d been to the garden a week or so to take some staff and trustee portraits but having a little free time, and with the sun shining, I decided to pop back, have a proper look around and take some photographs of flowers at Helmsley Walled Garden, instead of people.
It looks amazing at the moment, peak of the summer blooms, but unlike lots of the visitors understandably taking pictures of glorious colourful flowers, I decided I’d look at doing some micro shots using the Ricoh GR3. Getting in close with shape and form being the driver for an image instead of vivid colours.
When I got home and started editing I decided to change most of them to black and white and I’m pleased I did. Without the distraction of colour the stunning shapes and geometry came to the fore. A kind reviewer on Instagram noted on seeing them how she liked the depth. That meant a lot as I’m starting to get a grip on editing using layers and masks to focus on certain elements of an image – pushing highlights, increasing blacks etc.
My take away from the experience of photographing flowers at Helmsley Walled Garden is to perhaps ask myself when approaching a series of location photographs ‘What is the obvious potential here?’ – then do the opposite!
We’ll see …
And here’s one in colour:
And some more typical walled garden images from my walk around:
