Pond Plants Surface Details
Even if you live in a city, you don’t often have to go very far to find places where good subjects can be discovered and photographed. While I am fortunate enough to not live in metropolitan area, I do live in the most densely populated state in the US, so areas of open wild space, especially in crowded Northeastern New Jersey, can sometimes be very difficult to come across.
Fortunately, there are some spectacular little treasures in the area that I like to visit. One such place is a privately owned pond and garden center in Allendale that has outdoor ponds and cement pools filled with water lilies, irises, and other aquatic plants. With permission, I have taken my camera there and photographed the plants as well as any wildlife I have found. Usually, the lilies are the main attraction, but I have occasionally seen frogs, dragonflies, butterflies, and mute swans there as well. While photographing in the ponds and surrounding areas can be difficult, due to plant ID tags and plastic buckets sticking out of the water or just beneath the surface, if you look carefully and try hard enough, you can get some wonderful photos.
This photograph is an example of one such image possible to attain at your local aquatic florist or city pond. I liked the combination of different plants on the surface of one cement pond, so I carefully set up my tripod along the edges of the pond and looked for a suitable composition. When I found something I felt worked, I used mirror lockup and a cable release to get a sharp shot despite the soft light and narrow f-stop required to maximize depth of field. In this situation, I did not use a polarizer because there might have been some plastic buckets under the surface of the water which polarization might have revealed and I was already approaching quite slow shutter speeds, but often, when shooting a pond scene like this, the use of a polarizer can help eliminate reflections and further saturate the leaves of the water lilies and other plants.
Techs: Canon 1D Mark II N, Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro, 1/30s, f/10, ISO 200, tripod and cable release, full frame. To order this print, purchase stock rights, or view other photos I have for sale, please visit my website at www.karipost.com.
In: Featured Photographs, Tips and Techniques
on February 3, 2008 at 10:38 am
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I really like this one. The perfect intimate landscape of a pond. So much to look at…
on February 3, 2008 at 5:54 pm
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I love shots like this Kari. They can become too busy real quick, but you kept everything in harmony here.
on February 4, 2008 at 5:30 am
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Hi Kari, came to your site/blog via Chris’ website which I found via another site – the internet works in funny ways sometimes that way! Anyway I find this shot particularly breathtaking. Like Mark said it can get very busy, but I too find this really beautiful and well framed. An enjoyable photograph to truly explore!