Photography For Gardeners with Dan Jaffe Wilder via Native Plant Trust

Garden photography is great especially for beginners who want to get into nature photography, though, because it doesn't move often, it doesn't bite, and it's generally easier to photograph than a Cheetah.

You don't need fancy equipment. You can take a good photo with anything you have. There does come a time, however, when you become limited by the tools you have. That's a good time to think about upgrading- the day you finally feel limited. There is no right or wrong, though. Work with what you've got.

Any lens that claims to do everything does everything poorly. Specialized lenses are expensive, but they are your friend. Most of the time the best additional leses for you are going to be made by the company who produced your Camera, because they're pretty much always garunteed to work. And when you're buying something that expensive, that matters.

A tripod is great when you need to keep a photo nice and tight. The problem with tripods, though, is you actually have to remember your tripod.

When you're taking photos, keep in mind the Rule of 3rds. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it's something to play with. Remember flow, too- or the way our eye travels across the photo. Our eyes naturally move from left to right in our culture, and we can use that in our photos as well. Depth of Field is important, too. It's the difference between the nearest and furthest objects in focus. The lower the F-Stop, the blurier the background (you can go so low you ruin the photo, however, so keep this in mind).

If you want a fun way to play with your photography, go out and play with framing. Ignore the center of the image. It's a different way of looking through your camera.

If you're going to have negative space, commit to it and use it to your advantage.

Take a photo of the flower, but every now and then, think about what's behind it and how you can use it to support the image.

Don't be afraid to play with repetition and angles, framing, etc.

Don't be afraid to walk around with a spray bottle to spray plants with. There's nothing that actually says you have to wait for it to rain.

Do what works for you, though. Photography is an artform, and like with any artform, you have to find your own style. Practice by trying one thing at a time. As you do, patterns will usually naturally emerge which define your style.

Take a breath in, exhale, and then take the photo on the exhale for a good and stable photo. And when in doubt about your settings, take the photo on Auto, check the settings it chose on its own, and start there for your own manual settings.

Go out, take some photos, come back and look at them with a critical eye. What do you think worked. What do you think didn't work.

Don't compare yourself to other Photographers. For this one good shot you're seeing in front of you, there's 50+ more behind it that they threw out. The one they show is just the one they liked most. Don't be afraid of taking 200+ photos yourself.

It's a good idea not to rely on Post Processing to fix things. That doesn't mean it's not a good tool, however. Especially when the limitation is itself a technology issue.