Virginia bluebells - indoors

Virginia bluebells
Originally uploaded by argusmaniac.

Last night I was eager to do some shooting of our Mertensia - (Virginia Bluebells) in our garden. Our backyard is basically a woodland wildflower garden with an overstory of hickory and oak. By the time I was able to do some shooting it was nearly dark. In addition, we have the disappointing weather forecast of snow this weekend -- after 78° on Tuesday. I figured that I had better just cut one of the flower stalks and bring it inside and do some shooting studio-style.

I'm glad I did -- Mertensia is really a tough one to photograph well. It's fairly low to the ground - bright light washes it out, and if windy, you can't get great depth of field.

So, I set it up on a table with a black velvet backdrop, used a cheap vivitar strobe behind a white umbrella, and small mirror to reflect light from below to capture the details. Fuji Finepix S7000 with +4 diopter, 1/25 (or so) @ f8.

I like this setup so much, I think I'll do more flower portraits this way.