Winter is a wonderful time to photograph your garden. Too many gardeners wait for spring before reaching for a camera, but results from winter photography are equally beautiful in their own quiet way.
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For starters there's the softer light - our harsh Australian summer sunshine is death to photography. Winter lets you enjoy the shapes of trees and shrubs when they're bare of leaves.
If you're rethinking your garden's layout, you can compare the forms and proportions of planted areas to empty spaces of lawn and paving more easily when they're unobscured by abundant growth - even better if the ground is carpeted in frost or snow.
In winter, you can take advantage of sunrise or morning mist without crawling out of bed when you're only half awake.
Evening light is lovely too, though the dying day's shadows can be annoyingly dark. Also, the air is dry - it's dawn's humidity that makes early morning special.
Whenever you're planning to take photos, get ready the previous day.
Walk round the garden, pull out large weeds, tidy up stray bits of pruning. Rake paths and if necessary mow the lawn. Weed, water and sweep round pots.
When photographing a garden, tell the whole story with a variety of shots including distance, medium range and close-up.
- Fiona Ogilvie
Put out your equipment and finally, charge your camera. My generation ran out of film, millennials run out of charge. It's easy to get caught.
Happily weeding a few days ago, I suddenly noticed the glorious sunset. My phone was handy but wouldn't capture the true red.
Chittering with annoyance, I ran for my mighty Canon, only to find it dead as a dodo. By the time I'd rescued my point-and-shoot from the glove box the sunset had gone.
When photographing a garden, tell the whole story with a variety of shots including distance, medium range and close-up.
Once you have the basic three, extend your range with wide-angle shots, and shooting from above and below: climb up a ladder, crouch down on the ground.
Regardless of what you're shooting, get as close to it as possible. Decide on your subject, then focus on that alone.
My early morning trees would have much less impact if they were at the far end of the paddock rather than in the foreground.
As a rough guide, allow 30 per cent for sky (reversed if you're shooting sunset).
Close-up composition mostly takes care of itself but again, the nearer in you get the better.
Set your camera on auto but don't zoom, just take your lens as close as you can without losing clarity. Keep your fingers crossed for a pollinating insect - even in winter you can be lucky.
Lastly, storage. Remote storage on the cloud is available, with costs varying according to plan and file size.
You can copy photos to a USB memory stick but shelf life is limited to maybe 10 years.
A back-up external hard drive costs more but is probably the best long-term solution.
Study how three Australian garden photographers handle light: Clare Takacs (www.takacsphoto.com/), Simon Griffiths (www.simongriffiths.com.au/gardens) and Sue Stubbs (www.suestubbs.com.au/) all have great websites.
