by Kimberly Wehger
This month, the Olde Ripton Garden Club invited me to speak as the guest presenter, and I was thrilled to lead a presentation on photography using landscape and horticulture subjects. We also spent time reviewing plans and donation guidelines for our upcoming plant sale — an important annual fundraising event for the club.
As the ORGC website designer, I supplement each month’s written feature with meeting photos submitted by other members as well as from my own portfolio. With camera in hand at these meetings, it’s not uncommon to find myself in conversations about photography tips and tricks to stories about beautiful locations or garden specimens that made striking photos. I gathered many of these points together for the May 2018 presentation — just in time for the start of the garden season!
As long as people have admired plants and installed gardens to improve the aesthetics of their homes and communities, they have sought to extend the beauty of those botanical subjects beyond the growing and blooming seasons. Photography is the natural extension of this endeavor. After an introduction to the types of cameras available for enthusiasts, I provided a quick tour of how cameras work, focusing on the role of the lens, aperture, and shutter. Even point-and-shoot cameras have some individual control of these parts, and small adjustments can take a photo from good to great.
Like a pencil with a drawing, the camera is just the tool for a photograph, and I shared some sample photos that did — and more importantly, did not — work to explain the role of composition in creating a great photo. Luckily for gardeners, the elements of composition that we use to design a garden (color, rhythm, texture, quantity, etc.) are the same considerations in photography.
Lastly, I presented some Q&A slides to review practical topics such as choosing the right camera, how to transfer photos from cameras and phones to computers, and what retailers provide services for creating wall prints, albums, greeting cards, and other gift and home decor ideas.
Of course, all of these tips and tricks can help elevate the artistry of your photos, but any photo that you love or carries a special meaning is already a great photo. It’s my hope that the topics helped everyone find a neat method to try on their next walk through a garden!
In our meeting, we also spent time discussing the upcoming plant sale. Most plants are grown from ORGC members’ gardens — each specimen has been lovingly cultivated and cared for. Also available will be Shelton City Flower Plants (Rudbeckia fulgida) and a wide variety of homemade baked goods. Proceeds will benefit garden and scholarship activities. Renee Marsh presented guidelines for member plant donations, outlining what invasive plants to avoid. We also reviewed committee teams and logistics for plant drop-off, setup, customer assistance, and break-down on sale day.
Linda Hooper discussed the horticulture submissions for this month, “Mother’s Day Flowers.” Featured arrangements included wild cherry, wild apple blossom, wild violets, branches of azalea, and wild bleeding heart.
The “Mother’s Day Flowers” arrangements featured frothy, fairy-like bouquets of delicate flowers. Miniature blossoms in dainty porcelain cups, slender vases, and clear glass showcase the beauty of specimens with particularly short blooming periods. Take note of quick-blossoming trees while they are in flower!
For a limited time, a PDF copy of the 90-page Photography in the Garden and Beyond presentation will be available exclusively to ORGC members. More information coming soon!