A study on Fritillaria photography

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams

I've really been working on my photography lately, I get home from work and have time to get a few things done in the home garden before the light starts to get just right. I've hardly been using the lightbox I bought a few years ago anymore. It seems that the the filtered effect of the greenhouse with the setting sun and some forward light from a simple spectrum adjustable LED mounted on a tripod is doing the trick for me. I don't have the fanciest equipment but I've learned to make due with what I have. I doubt very much Ansel would have approved of the use of f stops down in towards f4 and below, but it's working to capture the flowers as I see them every day. Sometimes highlighting a little detail with some reflected light is good, sometimes getting that backlight through the tepals really shows the color. I keep experimenting and trying new things and sometimes things work out! I'm no expert, but if anyone is interested I could put together a talk on plant photography. I've figured a few things out that might help the everyday person make the photo's they see in reality something they can transfer to the page. Below are a few Fritillaria I captured this evening with some brief bio's. I think the images turned out well. 

Fritillaria acmopetala Dark form
First collected by the Swiss botanist and mathematician Pierre Edmond Boissier, who happened to be the first person to describe Acantholimon. It was described in 1846 and introduced into cultivation in the 1870's. Hailing from Cyprus, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. I would almost call this one of the weedy ones, since it tends to seed around in the greenhouse and I find I have to rogue it out of other specimen pots. It's charmer for sure, and such a performer I'm not sure how it hasn't found it's way into the cut flower industry at this point. 

Fritillaria amana
This one was growing in mixed company of a pond planter with the label 'Yellow Form', Indeed many in the pot are the yellow form, but this one was a particular standout with it's gold margins, and dusky almost glaucus shouldered bells. From Turky''s Amanus mountains, I'm sure I've covered the species extensively in this blog before. But it's always nice to discover a new form and think about the clonal potential. 

Fritillaria gussichiae

This is the first year this one has bloomed for me, from a Vlastimil Pilous seed collection in Sadanski, Bulgaria in 2017. I have high hopes for this one as the region seems a bit similar to our own Oregon Climate, although a bit warmer and a bit less rainfall on the average. It's a quick one to mature, putting on an impressive stalk of flowers after only 4 years from sowing. 

A nice little crop of photogenic Fritillaria for a Monday evening. Again, I'm no expert, but I would be happy to come to your garden club/society etc, and share some photo's of a wonderful array of Fritillaria and other unusual flower bulbs and discuss photography tips for capturing dramatic plant photo's. 

Sunny afternoons after crisp mornings, I buttoned up the African collection after seeing 28 in the overnight forecast. 

Cheers, 

Mark