Garden Photography Tips

Winter is a natural downtime for gardening in the North. There are always a few months after the garden has been put to bed (and before you start seeds) when the work is at a minimum. This is good time for planning, of course, but it’s also a great time to learn new skills. Looking for one to try? How about garden photography?

From a practical standpoint, good garden photography can help you promote your garden business in advertisements or social media. There’s also the matter of preserving your efforts—you put many hours of physical work into your garden, and nice photos are a way to help make that work last even longer. There is also the less exciting but very practical matter of documenting your garden for future reference (i.e., “what did we put in this bed last year?”).

But there are other reasons, maybe even more important. People who can’t garden themselves may really appreciate seeing your garden in photos—you can help spread the joy this way. And maybe the most important reason to photograph your garden is simply for the pure enjoyment you can obtain from the process. To help you get there, here are a few tips to think about. 

Look for the details

Some of the best garden photos are close-ups of fun details. A single pea pod, the interior of a daylily or a drop of dew collected in the folds of a nasturtium leaf are all the starting points of interesting garden photos.

Seek out repeating patterns, like the lines and shapes of a bed of bean leaves. Find fun pollinating insects working colorful blossoms. Or fill the frame entirely with sunflower seeds.

Try a flash if you have one

Often times in photography, flash can do more harm than good. But outdoors in your garden, a small amount of flash can really help the image pop. This is a great tool for garden photography. In these cases, the sun is still acting as the main light—most of the illumination required to make the photo is coming from there. But a small amount of extra light coming from your camera’s flash does a few things: it fills in shadows from plant leaves and stems, making the image more pleasant to look at. Use it for things like tomatoes or peppers, as the flash adds a gentle sheen to the surface of the fruits and adds a professional touch to the image.

Just about every camera (even your phone) has a way to control the intensity of the flash, marked by a plus-minus symbol that looks like a lightning bolt with a “+/-” next to it. Before you start photographing, turn the flash down a few notches, to about -1 or lower this will help ensure that the flash doesn’t overpower the photo. You just want a little touch of extra light from it. No flash? A simple inexpensive photography reflector board can provide similar results.

Watch those backgrounds

Gardens are full of objects beyond the plants. There can be fencing, trellises, tomato cages, and all types of décor. While none of these items are unattractive, they can easily clutter up the background of a photo. Straight lines and colorful objects (especially white objects) suddenly become annoying, blurry distractions when accidentally included in the background of a photo. Something as simple as a little garden marker can turn into a large messy blur if you’re not careful. Before pressing the shutter button, take a methodical look around your entire camera frame, searching for background distractions.

What camera? What lens?

You don’t necessarily need to have expensive equipment to get nice garden photos. The camera on your phone is actually pretty well suited to garden photography. That’s because the lens on a mobile device performs best with wide-angle shots and close-ups—both of which are common in garden photography. You might want to use a wide-angle shot to show the beauty of the whole garden or a specific bed, while also moving in close for a colorful pea blossom. The small size of a phone’s imaging sensor is generally a disadvantage, but it actually helps with close-up photos (called “macro” photos). But try to avoid “zooming in” your camera phone’s lens, as this tends to create digital artifacts that lower the overall quality of the image.

Even though phones are handy and capable, you are more likely to get better results if you photograph your garden with a “real” camera, like a DSLR or mirrorless camera. In this case, the lenses are removable, and you’ll choose one appropriate for the photo you’d like to create—perhaps a macro lens for close-ups, or a wide angle lens for general work. All things being equal, the DSLR or mirrorless camera will provide you with technically higher quality images—though the task of creating those good images in the first place is still up to you.

For garden photography, one really useful lens is what they call a “superzoom.” It’s a single lens that offers a large zoom range—a do-it-all lens. It can zoom in, it can zoom out, and it can focus quite close to an object (kind of like a weak macro lens). However, superzooms are “jacks of all trades, masters of none,” so while they’re really handy, the image quality is a little poorer than that of more expensive and lenses designed for specific jobs.

Light it right

It’s the beautiful sunny days that often draw us outdoors, but next time you get a bright overcast day, grab your camera and run for the garden. Opposite of what you might think, cloudy days bring out the colors and vibrancy of your garden landscape. Partly cloudy days work well too, when the strong intensity of the sun is softened a bit by clouds. Try it—you’ll be amazed. If it is a sunny day, experiment with photographing in the early morning or late afternoon, use your flash and try to utilize the bright blue sky as a backdrop.

Just like your garden itself, successful garden photos require some planning, the right tools and a bit of effort. But this is another branch of your garden hobby that can provide an entirely new layer of enjoyment and pleasure.

Daniel Johnson is a Wisconsin-based freelance writer, professional photographer and co-author of over a dozen books. See his garden and animal photography at foxhillphoto.com.