?Spring is officially here, and the flowers are in their full splendor. Vibrant colors always draw to the photographer?s eye, and this year?s blooms are no exception! Take a stroll one afternoon through the Botanic Gardens or Kelvingrove Park and bring your camera. Try some of these tips to improve your shots:

1.????? Get close. I mean REALLY CLOSE. Wide shots of a flower bed are nice enough, but they don?t give the viewer any of the minute details. Instead of trying to capture an entire garden, just focus on one or two flowers. Try to fill the entire frame with the flower if you can, and let your picture show some of the fine detail that inside each blossom.

2.?? If you have an SLR camera, play with the depth-of-field by setting your camera on aperture-priority mode. I like to use a low f-stop to blur the background to really make my subject stand out. Sometimes though, if the background is important to the context of the photo (say, if the flower is in front of the Kelvingrove Museum), then I like to use a higher f-stop so that the entire image is more in focus.

3.?Look for the unique and different angle. Get on the ground and look up at the flowers, like an ant. Or go for the bee?s eye perspective and stick your lens right on top of the flower. Get creative, use squinty angles, try anything that is different and unexpected!
Most important of all though, have fun and get out there!

?Robert is an American student at the University of Glasgow, where he is studying economic development. When not working on his dissertation, he is usually out and about with his camera documenting life in Glasgow. His work can be found online at?www.robertbkent.com ?

Carnivale de Nice Double Tulip

City of Flowers

Double Tulip

West Point Tulips

White Tulip

Yellow Tulips

Snowy Main Building - University of Glasgow

Snow always creates some very special photographic opportunities. Like I mentioned in my last post, the West End has a vibrant color palette that changes through the seasons. One of my favorite subjects in Glasgow is the University?s Main Building, and I have particularly enjoyed watching how its honey-colored sandstone complements the different colors of the seasons.

Snowy Quadrangle - University of Glasgow

Snow presents some difficult challenges as well. Besides having to brave the elements, light does funny things in the snow. Images come out with too much contrast, or incorrect white balance. Using a digital workflow has the advantage of opening up possibilities in the digital darkroom to exploit the ?flaws? that sometimes come up in snow pictures and create some truly unique images, like the one below:

? Snow Burn

Another of my favorite subjects is the Kelvingrove Museum. The building?s architecture is so dramatic, it seems more like a villain?s secret lair than a repository for art. Black and white photography is very good at adding mood and drama to a subject, and the snow just enhances this effect even more. ?

Snowy Lord Kelvin

Robert is an American student at the University of Glasgow, where he is studying economic development. When not working on his dissertation, he is usually out and about with his camera documenting life in Glasgow. His work can be found online at www.robertbkent.com