Past Newsletter

The Journey Through Landscape goes indoors during this chilliest month of the winter as I have decided that February is flower month. So, I am spotlighting my Sensual Botanica collection of photographs and notecards in this edition of the newsletter. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, should you need something for your sweetheart. Enjoy!

On the Website

I have a Sensual Botanica Gallery on the website here.

I also have a couple of sets of notecards for sale in the Store section of the website. A set of 8 color notecards here. A set of 8 B&W notecards here. A 40-page hard-back picture book is available here.

Photo Techniques

Flowers are very special to me because they helped me make the decision to pursue photography as my passion. About three years ago, when I was still a full-time consultant and part-time photographer, we had fresh-cut flowers delivered to our offices every week. I would make a point of finding some time when I could to photograph the flowers and I really liked what I was producing. Since then I have continued to take pictures of flowers when the chance comes up. I also took a fabulous class on macro photography where I learned all sorts of neat tricks.

There are a couple of different methods that I used to get the pictures you see on the website. Back when I started I used my desktop document scanner placed in a dark room with some black foam core board behind the flowers. This method works very well and I even have a large print of the roses titled “flowers 3” hanging above my mantle. Obviously I spend a lot of time in Photoshop making the background totally dark and converting to black and white.

The simplest way of taking pictures of flowers is to set them up against a neutral colored wall and point your camera at them. This is a technique I used for the picture entitled daffodils, taken in our bedroom with the morning light filtering in through the windows to the left.

The next level of complication is to get a macro lens that allows you to focus in very closely and really isolate unique aspects of the plant. About half of the pictures in the Sensual Botanica Gallery were taken using a macro lens.

There are all sorts of ways of illuminating the plant. The simplest is to use natural light, as seen in Sensual Botanica 11, 12, 14, 16, and Daffodils. The beauty of using a digital camera is that it is easy to balance the color, so you can use just about any light source you want such as a flashlight or any kind of lightbulb in a reflector. If the light is dim enough, you can take a time exposure and move the light around to evenly illuminate the plant, as seen in Sensual Botanica 1, 2, 3, 5, or 9.

Journey Through Landscape: Events

I am returning to the Wine Store section of Marczyk Fine Foods to show my collection of Sensual Botanica photographs during the month of February. Seeing as Valentine’s Day is in February I thought it would be appropriate to try to sell some of my own flowers, so please stop by and have a look. Most of the prints will be $100 or less and I will have some of my flower notecards on sale as well. Oh, they have wine and beer there also, not to mention chocolate, so we’ve covered all the bases for your Valentine’s Day needs.

When & Where
All of February, 2008
Marczyk Fine Foods Wine Shop
770 E. 17th Avenue
17th & Clarkson
Denver, Colorado

Wine Tasting & Drawing for a FREE PRINT
Saturday, February 16th, 2008
12:00 - 2:00 pm

I hope to see you on February 16th at Marczyk’s Wine Shop!

Thanks for reading,

Evan Anderman
Evan Anderman Photography LLC