The Voice Behind The Lens
WHEN THE STREET PHOTOGRAPHER MEETS A FLOWER
Not so long ago, I was not interested in taking pictures of people. My passion for many years was trekking to the beautiful places in the world and making art out of nature.

Five or so years ago, I drove 2 ½ hours each way to this beautiful swamp, 30 miles from the other side of Florida and took pictures of this wonderful place. Much to my dismay, when I examined my contact sheets the pictures were out of focus. I was using a Mamiya RB 67 2 1/4 x 2 3/4 format camera which, if used properly gave wonderful images which could be enlarged beyond belief. Without so much as a thought as to the content of the images, I made the same drive as I had the last week and re-shot the same scenes. This time, when the contacts came back, I was glad to see that the shots were in focus. The pictures were none too interesting, but every shot was focused perfectly.

That was a long prelude to discussing the images that accompany this article During the holidays, I went to the American Orchid Society gardens in Delray Beach, Florida with my wife. The flowers were beautiful. When I saw the images I had taken when I arrived home, I immediately realized that my old flower shooting skills were rusty. I had used virtually no depth of field and I did use auto-focus, as I would in shooting dark street scenes. That did not work for the flowers I was shooting and I knew better. The images were focused on some point, sometimes the correct one and sometimes the wrong one. Also, the image was completely in focus about a 1/4 of an inch on either side of the point of focus because of the tiny depth of field on the macro lens I was using combined with the narrow depth of field. I returned the next weekend with my daughter. When I tried to turn on my Nikon D1x, it did not work. I had recharged the battery at home and had left it there. The spare had died a few days before and I did not have a replacement yet. I did have my Canon S50 with me and used it, knowing the pictures would not be right. This time, way too much depth of field, showing background that was unsightly was the problem. You know the rest of the story, back again with my daughter the next day and I shot the flower that I had really liked again. .

Visit Gallery