Shining honesty

Confession time everyone- still life really isn't my thing!

The background on this is quite obvious in the weave of the paper and I really haven't got great lighting despite messing about with silver foil as a makeshift reflector. It's better than this same sprig of honesty taken where it grew with a really intrusive background but I'm clearly still learning! All advice welcome...

[Joanne Diochon]

I'm struggling too, but I think we just have to keep trying...advice or tips can be helpful but nothing seems to teach me as much as trying and trying again.

[Mary Beth O'Sullivan]

Watch Tony Sweet on YouTube on how to shoot flowers, he has too many cool ideas to mention here! My favorite is shooting soft out of focus pictures and having them blown up on paper and use that as a background! That is what I did to one of my rose pictures on my page! So many options, and you won't get the texture of the cloth behind the subject! Also, use a smaller aperture, that will blurr out the background. Keep shooting though! Just takes a lot of practice! By the way, I have never seen a plant like that! What is it???

[Mary Beth O'Sullivan]

You can also move the plant a little bit more away from the background! I like the blue and the contrast! Have fun!! =)

[Amanda R.]

I don't have much advice beyond the aperture one that @marybethosullivan mentioned. You can focus on specific parts of the plant too and if you shoot at certain angles beyond just straight on, you can get some really nice depth. I think it's lovely, though! I love the warm tones in this.

[Shirley Marshall]

Mary Beth's advice sounds good. Hope you find time to follow it up. Could you send me a few seeds of Honesty in the post please? I grew it many years ago but have never had any at this house.

[Angela]

@marybethosullivan Thank you for that advice and I'll look up the youtube. I'd deliberately done this photo on a tripod so I could have a slow shutter speed but a high F stop as this is quite a flat plant so I didn't want any of it out of focus but you're right, that also meant the background was too sharply in focus. It also seems rather obvious to move the plant away from the background but I hadn't thought of it! The plant is "honesty" (Lunaria Annua) hence the title of my photo and these are the seed heads which have a shiny surface. It's quite a pretty plant in summer in Europe but it's mainly known because of these distinctive seed heads. I think the plant has been taken to America but apparently not Australia!