CJ, Terry Myers, and I took a photo workshop (Art of Flower and Garden Photography) from Charles Needle on Saturday 6/9/18. It was held at the Sherman Library and Gardens in Corona del Mar. Our group (about 18) of photographers was allowed into the gardens 2 hours before scheduled opening (thanks, Charles). After a brief introduction in the meeting room, we were out with the Dahlias that made such and impression on the way to the meeting room. Tripods and diffusion discs were in use by many photographers although some only used iPhones. Either way the flowers were impressive and we all seemed to be enjoying ourselves.

After 2 hours of shooting we gathered back in the meeting room to hear Charles speak on photography: macro equipment and regular and impressionistic approaches to shooting. His emphasis was on flower photography which made sense being in a garden. The techniques also applied to other areas of photography. It was a good review for CJ, Terry and I. There were some beginners and I realized that it was great for them to hear Charles' information. Next up was lunch which we decided to have at the cafe in the gardens. Maybe not the best choice for food but it was filling and kept down the walking distance. 

Lunch was followed by a presentation on creative photography. Charles made it clear that participants were free to go back out and shoot but almost everyone stayed to listen. Charles presented several impressionistic camera techniques. Some methods used  2 or more photos slightly out of registration combined either in the camera or later in photo editing software (think Photoshop). Charles had names for them such as: Multi Exposure Monet, Soft-Glow Montage, Composite Montage, Intentional Camera Movement (Swoosh, Zig-Zag, Rotate & Zoom) and Defocusing. He also talked about using special creative lenses such as those by Lensbaby. It was a good review as I had done many but not all of the techniques and had stopped using them.

Selective focus using Tamron 180mm macro.	Selective focus using Tamron 180mm macro.
Taken with Lensbaby Velvet 56. Taken with Lensbaby Velvet 56 lens.	Taken with Lensbaby Velvet 56 lens.

The final presentation was about using iPhone apps such as Snapseed, Touch Retouch, Vivid HDR, Camera+, Distressed FX, and several others. Many of these I had used but I was not familiar with the macro capabilities of Camera+. You can focus really close (closer than normal) using Camera+ in it's macro mode. Charles also included information about lenses that can add capability to a smart phone such as those by Moment, Apexel, Oloclip, Lensbaby and many others. Several accessory lenses come with a clip to make attachment easy. I like and use the Moment lenses and the ones by Lensbaby made for iPhone. Then it was about an hour of shooting left before our day was over. The rush hour traffic made the 90 minute drive last for over 2 hours. So we had lots of time to review our day.

Orchid Cactus	Rotate the lens in its mounting collar while using a slow shutter speed.