Eva Nemeth: Sharing her best tips for garden photography. And a bit of flat lay.
I am so delighted that Éva has been kind and generous enough to write this amazing guide for Gather. In our interview, she shared how wonderful it had been to photograph Dan Pearson’s garden many times across the season and so it is particularly special to see one of the raw, behind the scenes shots from his beautiful garden. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did!
G x
Top tips
My heart is in garden photography and I’m happiest when I’m out there, in a garden, one I have seen or never seen before, and in any season, I just love it so much and I feel very lucky and grateful that I can call it my job. I absolutely love sharing this love with others so let me share with you my top tips for perfect garden pictures.
One -
appropriate clothing. Oh my, this is so important. You would be surprised to know how cold it can be at 3am on a Summer’s morning. Make sure you have clothes for the season and for all sorts of weather. Comfortable boots or wellies. Morning dew, on a perfect Summer’s morning, can so perfectly soak any non-waterproof footwear.
Two -
You will have noticed that I mentioned 3am and morning dew. It’s because my favourite time to take pictures of gardens is very early in the morning. Saying that, some gardens look more flattering with the sunset light, I do love those too. When shooting early, I like to be in the garden and starting to shoot an hour before sunrise. Once the sun is up and the golden hour and the soft light are gone, they will be replaced by a much harder light that will bring out strong contrasts. I find the soft light more pleasing and quiet. I like quiet moments and these are the moments I try to capture in any garden and for that, I need the light to be quiet too. Always keep an eye on the weather as on a cloudy day, the harsh sunshine won’t be a problem. Sometimes you get lucky and the light will be on your side but it’s not always the case. Just go with whatever there is and bring the best out of it.
Three -
Because I start shooting very early with relatively little light, I always use a tripod. Always for the big views but not always for the close ups. The reason for that is that I always capture bigger garden views first. With the most beautiful, quiet and soft light. Capturing lots of lovely details means I shoot on a high f stop which is a small aperture. Aperture is the opening of a lens's diaphragm through which light passes. Through a small aperture less light will pass so the camera will take longer to create the photograph. And that is the reason I use the tripod, to avoid camera shake and blurred images.
Four -
Once the bigger views are captured, I can move towards larger apertures (small f stop) as I will start focusing on plant combinations and close up details. Small f stop photography is well loved with many of you in Gather. The famous 50mm lens. The reason why it’s that popular is its ability of shooting on a small f stop which means that you’ll get that beautiful shallow depth of field and with the small f stop (large aperture) the light will find it easy to reach the sensor of the camera and it will be able to take the picture quicker, with a comfortable shutter speed where you can hand hold the camera without having having to worry about camera shake.
Five -
Have a flask of a hot drink of your choice with you at all times.
Putting it into practice
How and what you photograph, both come with lots and lots of practice. Take pictures and don’t just leave them on your camera or phone but look at them and learn from them, adjust them, feel them, feel what makes you happy. And follow that recipe.
Let me show you how I put all this into practice.
Taken at Dan Pearson and Huw Morgan’s garden, Hillside, Somerset
11 September 2020, 6am.
Canon 5M Mark IV, lens: 24-70mm f2.8,
Aperture f16, Shutter speed 1/30, ISO1000
This image was taken on a day where I was hoping for a nice sunrise (as always) and where you can see the brighter patches in the sky is where the sun should have appeared. But sadly, it didn’t.
My main aim was to capture this part of the garden in a way that is looks like it’s part of the surrounding countryside. Then the cows made an appearance on the field opposite so I wanted to include them in the shot too. There’s a single track road running past between the hill and the garden, can you tell?
As I wanted to capture lots of details, I chose a high f stop (small aperture) and that means a slow shutter speed so I used a tripod. I always use a tripod for landscape type images like these. As I shoot early morning (or later in the day) when the light is low and limited, my shutter speed would always be very very slow and that’s why I need the tripod. I also always want these images to be crisp and sharp, so I never risk using the camera hand held.
Before & after of Hillside
For mornings like these, where the light is not the best, I just have to go with what there is. I occasionally tend to underexpose these images to keep the highlights and opening up the shadows in editing. So the main editing steps here were toning down the highlights on the sky and opening up the shadows in the foreground. Also, warming up the picture with a bit of white balance adjustment. I always shoot leaving the white balance automatic and adjusting it in editing if needed.
Echinacea
Taken at Organic Blooms
3 August 2021, 7:57am.
lens: 85mm Aperture: f2, Shutter speed 1/1250, ISO200
Moving from bigger pictures to smaller details, I often change my lens to 50mm, 85mm or 100mm.
For individual plant details, I always choose to shoot them in a shady position, somewhere that’s away from the harshness of the sun. On a cloudy day, it’s not a problem but if it’s sunny, it can be a bit too much. There’s nothing wrong with that, I just much prefer the softer, more muted look.
When shooting flowers, I rarely just photograph a single flower. I prefer to show where and what other plants they’re growing with. I do love everything a bit imperfect. I love greenhouses, poly tunnels so this scene just called me. And the raindrops hanging on there from the night before are the added bonus.
What I did with this image, I lightened it up and again, adjusted the white balance to get a warmer look. I also desaturated it a tiny bit.
Before & after
In general, I don’t like changing the colour of flowers. I think it’s important - especially for a magazine feature - that you show their true colours. While I like desaturating in general and aim for muted colours, I make sure the colours of the plants always stay true.
In terms of editing. I shoot RAW files that come out raw and quite flat from the camera. Jpeg files are processed by the camera, colour corrected, sharpened, all that. Raw files come out flat and you have to bring them to life. A little bit similarly to developing film in a dark room. Your choice of editing is very much part of your style. Don’t be scared to experiment. Our styles might change with time and that’s fine. No matter how you edit, make sure that your composition is always right.
Flatlays
And on a slightly different note - this is very rarely part of my garden photography shoots but believe it or not, some garden owners do ask me to do a flat lay with plants from their garden. I do find this very flattering and love taking on the challenge of flat lays.
I’m not going to go into the creative side of flat lays - that could be the topic of a different blog post - but I’ll tell you how I do it from the photography point of view.
For flat lays I always use a high f stop (around f10) and shoot them most of the time from a tripod.
The reasons for is that most of my flat lays are taken indoors in a room where there is only one source of light - as you can see here, the light comes from the right hand side that is a big door between our dining room and the conservatory. The reason why I use a high f stop as I want to capture every single detail. The high f stop will result in a slow speed and indoors in this badly lit (although my favourite kind of light) dining room, I do need to use a tripod.
For some of my flat lays, I connect my camera to my computer and to see how it looks on the big screen, this is super useful and it might take longer but with just one image, you’ll get the result you want.
Quinces
And here’s an image I think Grace likes a lot so let me show you the behind the scenes of it. Taken in my shed on 28 October 2020 at 9.13am.
The shed is dark but it has a north facing door, absolutely ideal for this kind of moody photography. It’s also tiny. Spot my garden shoes and tripod. And all the mess. It’s almost difficult to open the tripod there it’s that small.
The tiny space is the reason I decided to crop this image square. The light is very very low so I must use a tripod if I want to have a crisp, sharp image (which I do want to have)
Editing on both images was very similar. Sharpening, a bit of darkening, warming up the white balance. A bit of desaturation.
Again. Make sure the light is ok. Then make sure the composition is ok. Then just keep shooting.
Quince chestnut images: f2.8, 1/250, iso 800, tripod
Quince only image: f2.8, 1/250, iso 800, tripod
Both taken on 24-70mm f2.8 lens on 55mm.
Before & after
A huge thank you to Éva for sharing this wonderful knowledge. I am definitely going to use my tripod more often in future, and I am also definitely going to find myself a dark and moody shed…
Grace