Spring Pictures of Tulips
Catch 'em While You Can!

Spring has sprung! Time to craft some pictures of tulips so dramatic that only the sweet scent is missing. Get in gear ...winter's melting away and color is springing up everywhere.

Come and tiptoe through the tulips with me right now.

Spring is so fleeting, you have to grab it by the petals while you can. If you missed it this year, drool over these pictures of tulips!

Flower lovers flock to Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver. In the spring, it's such a cheerful, heart warming place to be. Spring bulbs begin to burst through the ground in February while Old Man Winter still has the rest of Canada in its grip.

Make sure you get pictures of tulips as a complete garden scene. Take in the whole view and see how the garden's been planned out. If you're like me, once you get into your macro lens, you'll be tempted to spend all your time peering though it...

Don't neglect the larger picture! Use a wide angle lens, maybe 35 mm or a 50 mm, and get some landscape views.

Soft sunshiny yellow lily flowered tulips. This is QE Park, just behind Bloedel Conservatory. Great place to settle down to take some pictures of tulips. There's a pond and a stone bridge to use as a background.

Gardeners at “QE” Park do a bang-up job of mixing colors and flowers. There's also a constant flow of spectacular blooms from spring through fall.

Drive up the hill in Queen Elizabeth Park to the Seasons Restaurant. At the tall clock, look to your left and you'll see spring has sprung! Get your camera ready for a dazzling scene of red and yellow blooms.

Remember that there are great photos to be had when you include more than just a flower or two. Wait until later in the day when the sun isn't as strong, or its striking the plants from the side. The light is much softer in the evening.

Photography should be about fun and experimenting! I had some fun with these tulips. This and the photo below are my abstract renditions of tulips.

The are only a few colors in each photo. So these pictures of tulips are simple and clean.

The light is gorgeous, bright but not hard, and absolutely even. I used a reflector to lighten up shadows.

I find lots of uses for my reflector! Brightening up shadows is one use but at times it also shades very bright areas. My reflector is also a "gray card" to calibrate your white balance... multifunctional piece of equipment.

Life close-up to the flowers is fascinating! There are all kinds of details you wouldn't see from a few feet away.

You must use a tripod and timer or a remote. The quiver of your hand plus the movement of camera parts after the shutter release creates a mini earthquake when you take photos with a macro lens. All that movement works against sharp focus.

There's a delicate red outline on these lemon yellow petals... and the surface is so smooth. The light isn't hard even though it's mid day because I shaded the tulip with one a reflector... so reflectors can be multi-functional!

A perfect single late tulip with fabulous light. Also a “warm-hearted” tulip! Her petals look like they're wrapping around to hug herself. It's a 35 mm slide, Fuji film. This is the original and the next is one way of cropping.

One good result... the light on the coral colored petals makes the tulip really stand out on a black background. Love the extra “flame” of teal blue. The original 35 mm tulip picture turned out better than planned.

Here's another crop of the 35 mm slide above... you can get creative with Photoshop or other photo editors. I got rid of the leaves at the bottom and left the nearly black background with the blue “flame”. Just crop away and and delete the ones you don't like!

Rules of composition say not to place your subject central. But in the original photo, I ignored it! This is such a beautiful flower and the teal blue streaks made by the foliage, surround it like blue flames.

Whenever you crop, you lose valuable resolution. If you want a huge poster, cropping may not be a good idea. It all depends on the quality and number of pixels in your original image.

A few photography tips before your press the shutter-release!

• Size does matter! Make your subject fill the frame. You can...
• Walk up closer (feet are amazing and cheap photographic equipment!)
• Use the “close-up mode” on your camera's automatic settings.
• Use a macro lens (a bunch more money, but a heck of a lotta' fun!).
• Make sure your tulip has no blemishes. And pinch off any dead leaves so they don't detract from your main subject.

A three color combination that makes a beautiful photo! Controlling the number of colors in a scene is one aspect of planning your photo. Always check your background before you snap the photo... change camera angles to get rid of distracting objects.

Yellow always stands out. It grabs your attention and your eye automatically is attracted to a pure yellow. Make sure that you don't have a bright yellow in your photo if you don't want it there! It will be too distracting to the subject you want people to notice.

And notice how the background is blurred. You know there are red flowers but they're not recognizable and they don't take away your attention from the flower and bud. And there's a bit of matching red in the base of the tulip as well.

Even though the second shot is a dainty, lovely tulip, check the difference that the red makes in the last photo. Look at photography magazines to become more sensitive to color, light and composition.

The composition of this photo is good... the subject fills the frame nicely. But, the red in the last photo is more interesting, at least to me. You might not agree and that's okay.

The tulip is shaped a lot like a champagne glass! The outlines of the tulip petals create a few s-shapes... good composition.

If you're serious about photography, go online and participate in photo clubs or blogs to learn all you can from others who are more experienced.

An amazing Triumph tulip! No matter how many flower photos I take, this is my favorite of all my pictures of tulips. It's been reproduced in giclee, note cards, mouse pads and t-shirts.

Isn't the light spectacular? This gorgeous tulip lives in Vancouver at Stanley Park.

Do you notice the two upside-down V-shapes in the petal? The outside of the petal, the white edge, forms a V and the pink inside does, too.

The blue-green streaks are like flames in the background and they highlight the tulip nicely. Everything came together so well in this photo!

Enjoy taking pictures of tulips... they come in all shapes and sizes and the colors are spectacular. And if you get the chance, go on a tour of one of the spring tulip festivals.

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