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Tips for Photographing Daylilies, Photo Contest |
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| Greetings!
Is it June yet? It's been a late spring, but here in Tennessee the temperatures are just beginning to feel like summer. I've been spending a lot of time the last few days walking the fields and waiting for the daylilies to begin blooming so I can take pictures. It's something I enjoy doing, and over the years I've taken literally thousands of pictures of daylilies. A few of them have actually turned out decent, and I thought I would share some tips that I've found useful.
On the topic of pictures, I also wanted to remind you about our annual Photo Contest and encourage you to enter. It's a chance to share your pictures, win some great prizes and perhaps see your picture in an upcoming catalog or on our website. We would also love for you to upload pictures to our Facebook page (pictures posted to Facebook are not automatically entered in the contest).
Happy Gardening and God Bless,
Ken Oakes
Oakes Daylilies
800-532-9545
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Tips for Photographing Daylilies
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 Tips for Photographing Daylilies |
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Persian Market - picture taken at noon |
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Persian Market - picture taken early morning. |
Take pictures in the morning Daylily colors are the richest, and the blooms just look their very best, in the morning. I normally shoot from around 8:30 to 11:30, and after that I've found the light can get too bright and harsh. The light gets good again in the evening, but the blooms will look like they've been in the sun all day (not necessarily a bad thing, it is interesting to see how the colors can change through the day). |
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Doug's Red Mercedes |
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Royal Butterfly |
Shoot vertically Because of their shape, individual blooms often look best when shot vertically. |
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Siloam Ethel Smith with a bad shadow |
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Spider Miracle - It's a shame I didn't take a minute to remove the spent blooms, this could have been a really great shot |
Look all around the frame to see what is going to be captured
You may not want to notice the huge weed in the background (perhaps you missed just one when weeding), or the mess of spent blooms, or the obtrusive shadow falling across your bloom, but your camera will definitely notice. |
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Bali Watercolor - One of my worst pictures ever - notice the spent blooms and the backlighting. |
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Cameron Quantz taken in direct sunlight |
Shoot with the sun at an angle Shooting with direct sun on the bloom can be glaring, and backlit blooms can look funny, so I normally try to shoot so that the blooms are at an angle to the sun. Like the last tip, just pay attention to what you see through the lens, and it won't take long to realize which ways work and which don't. |
Try different things and Take a lot of pictures
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| Photo Contest |
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There are three categories you can enter:
Daylilies used in the landscape
People or Animals and Daylilies
Single Variety Pictures, etc.
The Prizes
The winners in each category will receive -
The Rules
- Deadline for entries is October 1, 2013
- Entries may be digital pictures, slides or prints. Email digital pictures to oakesdaylilies@aol.com or send on disk. Medium size digital files (400k-700k) are sufficient, although you can send larger or smaller.
- We will not return entries.
- You must be able to identify daylilies that are featured prominently, and they should be available from Oakes Daylilies.
- We reserve the right to use any pictures in our catalog or website and to print winners' names in our catalog.
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