International Women's Day: inspiring photographers

Since it is International Women's Day today, I thought I'd celebrate two female photographers, who have both got people to be braver with their photography.

I've been getting back into photography thanks to these women and their projects. Karen Louise George, who taught me how to photograph white flowers without losing definition, runs #KentPhotoProject (@FavershamPhoto) on Twitter and Facebook, with a different theme for each day of the month. Last month I joined in but used old photos; this month I am making the effort to take new ones deliberately for each topic. Today's subject was "Lunch", as you can see in the first photo, and it coincided with a rare sociable day in my calendar - I was due to catch up with three friends that I met on an improvisation course. We got on like a house on fire and have met up for a meal and chat every few months. They are a fantastic group of women, doing very different jobs, and it's quite likely we would never have met had we not all decided to be brave and try something new one summer. Our parents are from different parts of the world, so we are quite "international"!

Yesterday's subject was "Makes me smile", and there were so many things to choose from, but I decided to take this:

Emma Davies (@EmmaDaviesPhoto) runs #1day12pics on Twitter and Instagram on the first Saturday of each month. Whenever I've noticed that it's happening, I've not been in the mood to take photos all day, and I feel I ought to join in when I'm doing interesting things and going to new places. Yesterday I thought [bleep] it, I'll just join in. So I did. The photos weren't of anything exciting - two were of cups of tea and two were of laundry! But it was fun to do; it makes me want to look out for details in my day to day life and not miss out on tiny moments of beauty.

Here are my twelve pictures. If you like the sound of it, maybe take part in April? Though of course you could just decide to take a photo every hour on any day of the month! And in case you wonder, the Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin pie-making film is Labor Day.

A floral photography lesson from Amo La Fotografia

One thing I found difficult last year when I started learning how to use a photographer's camera and lenses (rather than my usual point-and-click or my mobile phone), was how to photograph white and pale flowers, especially when mixed with darker flowers. In this posy, the white roses lost their beautiful definition in my photos and just looked like big balls of white light!

So I was delighted when the lovely Kent-based photographer, Karen Louise of Amo La Fotografia, offered to give me an online lesson in photographing white flowers, along with other tips to improve flower photography indoors and outside. The ISO needs to be a low number (e.g. 100), the F-stop depends on whether you want detail in the background as well as the subject - a lower number for less detail in the background, and a faster shutter speed will result in a less exposed (light) photo. I am used to using the histogram as a guide, not the shutter speed, so this was all new to me. But...it works! It's quite hard to get out of old habits, and I can see that many of my photos could improve if I were a bit braver. As Karen Louise says in her tutorial, it's easier to 'correct' underexposed (darker) photos with an editing tool than it is to correct overexposed (lighter) photos. And incidentally, when you look at her tutorial you'll see her flower arrangements are as gorgeous as her photos!

Here are some photos I took of a couple of "all in the garden" arrangements, after reading the lesson. I'm a bit annoyed by the 'Penny Lane' dahlia sticking out like a sore thumb in the middle of the big arrangement - I actually removed it at the last minute before it was delivered - but never mind. The huge heads of white phlox are what I was worried about photographing, but I love how the detail  is kept by using a faster shutter speed. The tiny white flowers of Moroccan mint (I used lavender, orange, and pineapple varieties too) also kept their detail, and the white and red flowers of the 'Hot Lips' salvia kept more detail than usual. And you can't photograph scent, unfortunately, but both arrangements were highly scented, thanks to the wonderful phlox, mints, lemon balm/Melissa, sage, nicotiana, and sweet peas.