outdoor photography

Red Powder Puff Flower I used to visit Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD nearly once per week to photograph flowers.  Inside their greenhouse, you could often find these Red Powder Puff Flowers (at least I'm pretty sure that's what they're called). I think these flowers are pretty strange and pretty wonderful at the same time. Red Powder Puff Flower

Flowering Tree at Brookside Now that we've looked at the needed equipment and strategies for composition  and lighting to develop your own style for flower photography, I'd like to consider the need to break the mold you set, at least on occasion. When I lived in MD, I used to go to Brookside Gardens  [ gallery ] every Saturday morning.  I love that place--I suspect it's the best free place to photograph flowers in the state.  One day I was looking through my photos from Brookside, and it hit me that all my photos were taken at 180mm (the focal length of my macro lens), and almost all of these were closeups of flowers.  I was in a flower photography rut, and I didn't even know it.  Breaking that mold was hard, and in fact I'm not sure I ever did.  In some ways I guess I decided I liked my rut and I was sticking to it. Daffodils But I also realized that on occasion I need to try something different--I needed at least some variety in my a...

Clematis at Brookside Gardens Brookside Gardens is probably the best place in Maryland to photograph flowers for free.  It's huge, it's beautiful, and it's extremely well maintained.  It's located in Wheaton, MD off of Randolph Rd [ map ].  If you get there early, you can take advantage of good lighting and few visitors.  I usually arrive around 7:00 am and park by the greenhouse.  There are several beds of flowers close to the greenhouse and I spend most of my morning there. Brookside Gardens There are many different gardens to choose from, including: Azalea Garden with trails through a semi-wooded area.   Rose Garden with more rose bushes than you can shake a stick at (but please don't) Butterfly Garden by the Greenhouse Japanese Garden by the lake Perennial Garden Fragrance Garden with all kinds of fragrant plants (be careful if you have allergies) There's more than just these, but these are the highlights (at least for m...