Bell-like flowers dangling from a stem
Flowers,  Lens-Artists,  London,  Squares

Gallery: a cornucopia of flowers

May 26, 2024 / 52 Comments

Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow

John Lennon

Who doesn’t love flowers? Very few people indeed, I am sure. And by extension, who doesn’t love a flower photo? Of course, no photo can fully convey the beauty, and no scents were ever appreciated through an image.

But nevertheless I hope this selection of flower photos, all taken in my local London suburb of Ealing, will give you a lift. Some are from our own garden (including the fuschia in my feature photo). Others are from the (front) gardens of neighbours and many from the several local parks with which we are blessed. Finally, a few are of flowers bought locally to brighten the house.

For Sofia’s Lens Artists challenge theme of ‘Floral’ I did consider simply editing my recent post about wildflowers in Kensington Gardens. But in the end I couldn’t resist the opportunity to share yet more flowers this week. After all, I think we could all use that lift, and we all need to spread that love. And if you keep your eyes open you may spot some visitors spreading not love but pollen. Which arguably comes to the same thing, because it gives us more flowers!

Taking and editing floral photos

I’ve concentrated here mainly on close-up or macro shots. For instance, with tulips I enjoy poking my lens right into the flower to capture the pattern at its heart. Sofia also asks us to share how we help our flowers to shine through post-editing. Many of these images have been edited in Nik Color Efex Pro to create a softening effect, using a blur vignette, soft focus filter or both. For others, I chose to use a vignette to darken the edges of the frame, or in Photoshop Elements darkened all of the background.

Since quite a few of these shots are squared, I’m also linking them to Becky’s month of Squares for renewal. I’m about to go away for the annual Virtual Tourist meet (in Split and Kotor) so if I’m slow to reply to comments please bear with me!

52 Comments

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