With the arrival of August, summer is in full swing and gardens all over the UK are blooming, meaning photo opportunities galore.
Home and Garden on Female First
Watering your garden is key this month, particularly for container-grown plants or border plantings that are not yet established. Regular feeding and dead heading will help keep the garden looking its best until autumn.
With so many gorgeous blooms and dappled summer sunshine making gardens look picture perfect, capture the essence of summer for memories to last long after the sun goes down.
Rosie Nixon, Dobbies Garden Centres plant expert and flower photographer extraordinaire, knows exactly how to bring a garden to life through the lens. The great thing is you don’t need a sophisticated camera or tonnes of equipment to get those Instagram-worthy pics, just pick up your camera phone or digital camera and get out there!
“I’d always recommend that gardeners take pictures of their garden – it’s a great way to track progress and helps you become more aware of what’s actually going on in your garden.
“Green fingers or not, I’d encourage anyone to grab whatever camera you have, get outside and start capturing your garden coming to life. There’s so much going on and things can change so quickly that they’re easily missed – after you press that shutter button, you might be pleasantly surprised by what you’ve captured!”
Here, Rosie shares some of her top tips to get snapping:
- Early mornings, evenings and hazy or cloudy days are the best times to take your garden photos.
- Get closer by kneeling or lying down and looking at your garden on the screen of your camera phone or camera viewfinder.
- Take your time and let your eyes roam until you see something that interests you. Look at a few of the buds, flowers, seedheads or leaves and try to find one that is in the best condition or has a slightly different character that stands out from the rest.
- Remove distracting elements like random blades of grass, or if you can't remove the distraction change the angle you are photographing at.
- Notice how the light might fall on a flower or leaf, making it glow, highlighting the texture and enhancing its colour. Try to capture that
- Look for patterns, shapes, petal edges, curves, colours or textures - something that grabs your attention and stands out.
To see Rosie’s work, visit www.leavesnbloom.com. For plenty of ideas and inspiration for your garden this summer, visit your local Dobbies Garden Centres, www.dobbies.com.
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