{"id":3883,"date":"2024-08-31T20:56:17","date_gmt":"2024-08-31T12:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/?p=3883"},"modified":"2025-02-23T19:40:30","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T11:40:30","slug":"crimson-flowers-in-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/2024\/08\/31\/crimson-flowers-in-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Crimson flowers in winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

While walking in Bateman a few days ago, I spotted a park with pleasant rows of red-flowered coral trees, and decided that I must revisit it in the next few days. This afternoon, probably a couple of hours before sunset, I made it back. The light was not as golden as I had hoped it would be; I could have waited, but decided that the overall blueness of the background might complement the red colouration of the foliage. As it happened, it started raining not long after I left the park, so perhaps my decision was appropriate.<\/p>\n

With so many trees, albeit formed in roughly two columns, a few compositions came to mind immediately, but I probably could have spent longer and experimented further. For whatever reason, diagonal arrangements of the branches seemed to catch my attention first, as seen in the following photographs.<\/p>\n

\"Red
Coral tree flowers in Bateman, August 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Red
Coral tree flowers in Bateman, August 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Red
Coral tree flowers in Bateman, August 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Red
Coral tree flowers in Bateman, August 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a while, I tried some vertical compositions, and came to what I found the most pleasing, personally. In the image below, you can get a sense of the abundance of red flowers, while the redness does not dominate the scene. In the foreground, the flowers form a simple ‘V’ arrangement that actually reminds me of a cluster of stars.<\/p>\n

\"Red
Coral tree flowers in Bateman, August 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unlike the first few compositions above, which flowed from top right to bottom left, I found an interesting configuration of branches flowing from top left to bottom right. Looking at this image now makes me think of someone’s hand reaching down, with finders outstretched to the right.<\/p>\n

\"Red
Coral tree flowers in Bateman, August 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next we have various compositions from when I was experimenting with framing, including a single cluster in isolation from any other clusters.<\/p>\n

\"Red
Coral tree flowers in Bateman, August 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Red
Coral tree flowers in Bateman, August 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Red
Coral tree flowers in Bateman, August 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, I wanted to shoot a ‘wall of red’ to capture the vibrancy of the scene (which was in contrast with the cool weather on this, the last day of winter). Again, I think the results would have been even nicer with a healthy dash of golden light from a sunset, but the blues and greys complemented the reds reasonably well, peeking through between the crimson clusters.<\/p>\n

\"Red
Coral tree flowers in Bateman, August 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Throughout this brief session, I was shooting at f\/2.8 and 200 mm with my Nikkor AF-S 70\u2013200 mm f\/2.8 VR II lens on my Nikon D700. This is a combination that I have been shooting with for many months now, and is probably the ‘go to’ lens-body combination for wedding photographers, allowing them to give the most visual attention to the subjects in their images. (This would mean sharply-focused subjects in the foreground and blurred, ouf-of-focus areas in the background.)<\/p>\n

For maximal blurring of the background, use a large aperture with a distinctly separated near subject and distant background. This is, however, only part of the equation. You will also want to use a lens that renders out-of-focus areas nicely\u2014not all lenses do this. In general, a more telephoto lens and more aperture blades should give you more circular out-of-focus points, but I understand that there are better and worse optical designs for smoother rendering. I know that Nikon has consciously paid attention to these aspects of lens design for many years, and it certainly would not surprise me if Canon and others have done similarly.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, of course, it is down to the skills, knowledge, and experience of the photographer, particularly for a once-in-a-lifetime event such as a wedding. In comparison, shooting scenes like those above is, both figuratively and literally, a walk in the park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While walking in Bateman a few days ago, I spotted a park with pleasant rows of red-flowered coral trees, and decided that I must revisit it in the next few days. This afternoon, probably a couple of hours before sunset, I made it back. The light was not as golden as I had hoped it… Continue reading Crimson flowers in winter<\/span> →<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[391,41,392,58,42,162],"class_list":["post-3883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-bateman","tag-canon","tag-coral-tree","tag-nikkor-afs-70-200-2-8-vr-ii","tag-nikon","tag-nikon-d700"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4087,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3883\/revisions\/4087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}