A traditional portrait of a person is about capturing a particular quality of the subject including their essence, personality, and mood. Flower portraits can follow the same guidelines with the photographer looking for style, unique attributes, and feeling. I’m primarily a commercial portrait photographer, and I shoot people for business websites and editorial. I lead travel tours around the world and love photographing people, getting to know them, and making images that help create a better understanding of cultures different from our own. Since I could not travel this past year, I decided to find what I could photograph at home. I always had a love of flowers and made photos for my own enjoyment. Now, I’m fully immersed in several projects that are all related to flowers. The Fujifilm 80mm macro lens is the perfect lens for my flower portraits and I’ve shot thousands of images with it.
The Image
I recently visited a market with a beautiful selection of calla lillies in three different colors, so I bought them all. Some of my images are lit while others feature only natural light. My dining room is painted bright red and there are windows on two sides. This makes it a perfect background with gorgeous natural light. Every morning, as the light came through the windows, I would observe how the quality and direction of light changed the mood and texture throughout the day. Sometimes I would be so stunned by the light that I would shoot for a couple hours before I even got a cup of coffee. The same thing occurred in the late afternoon with the light streaming through the windows and illuminating the petals.
Every flower requires exploration and discovery. Eventually, it reveals its essence to me. For this shot of the calla, it’s late afternoon with soft light from behind. The shallow depth of field of f/2.8 guides the eye to discover the only thing that’s sharp — the yellow pistil. It’s almost a surprise, partially hidden by the warm petals, like a shy girl peeking out of the curtains. During my extensive shooting — which is still going on — my vision has developed and I find that I’m attracted to shallow depth of field which takes the viewer on a journey to discover the gem. The eye can only rest on what is sharp, so my images are roadmaps to the final destination.
The Fujifilm 80mm macro lens
The Fujifilm 80mm macro lens’ focal length means I can shoot very tight with room between the lens and the flower. It is amazingly sharp wide-open. This is great because I’m exploring with macro and extremely shallow depth of field. It’s sharp at f/16 too, and sometimes I’m looking for a greater level of focus for more graphic images.
The Fujifilm 80mm macro lens has five stops of image stabilization, which is a tremendous help for handheld macros. Paired with the Fujifilm XT-4 — which has in-body image stabilization — I can easily shoot off the tripod and get into some interesting angles. However, I do go on the tripod when I need either more depth of field or I’m so close that I can’t hold the point of focus steady. It is a 1:1 macro and the manual focus is very precise. The lens is also weather resistant. This is another great plus since I will occasionally shoot in the rain. The color coating is superb with superior optics and well-built.
I have yet to use this lens for shooting people but I’m looking forward to even more discoveries!
