After people, flowers are one of the most popular subjects for photography. Most people who own a camera have pointed it at flower or two. But those photos rarely come out looking quite like the images you find gracing gardening magazines. So if you'd like to improve the quality of your flower photography read on.

Now you may be a beginner with a compact digital camera, a photographer with some experience wanting to improve, or an experienced photographer witha bag full of gear wanting to get the hang of photographing flowers. So, in the hope that i can do the impossible and cater for all of you I will initially cover the basics and provide links to more information for those of you who need a little more depth. If it works, please let me know. If it doesn't, please let me know.

I am going to cover equipment, technique, and other stuff. Other stuff is a technical term for anything that doesn't fit into the previous two categories. It is also to add a touch of light-heartedness to the proceedings. Photography is fun and we can get a little bogged down in the technical aspects - but let's just keep an eye on the necessity to enjoy our image making.

On the topic of enjoying image making, you will find the activity of photographing flowers & gardens, much more enjoyable if you have a passion, or at least a love, for plants, flowers & gardens. You see a love for the subject, an occasional emotional response when you see a play of light, a colour, a pattern, a leaf is almost essential. For if you don't experience this, you will find it difficult to communicate it through your pictures. And while you may achieve technically acceptable images you will never look at them and think Wow! Not that it's necessary for others to think Wow!, but if you never get a Wow! yourself, there will be no drive in your photography of plants & gardens and you will lose interest.

And by the way if you'd like some help and guidance then just e-mail me a copy (800 pixel maximum dimension Jpeg) of a photograph that you'd like me to comment on.

Where to start

Now I'm going to assume you already have a camera. If want advice on choosing a camera click here.