100 Desert Wildflowers in Natural Color

Photography & Text Natt N. Dodge
SOUTHWESTERN MONUMENTS ASSOCIATION
Copyright 1963 by the Southwestern Monuments Association. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-13471 First Printing, 1963—20,000 Second Printing, 1965—20,000 Third Printing, (revised) 1967—20,000
Printed in the United States of America W. A. Krueger Co., Tyler Div. · Phoenix, Arizona
If your interest in desert flowers includes a desire to obtain beautiful photographs of them, the following “tips” may be helpful.
MOTION is a major hazard in still photography, and flowers, especially those on long, slender stems, seem to be constantly in motion stimulated by the ever-present desert breeze. The practical solution to this problem is to take your photographing jaunts, if possible, in the early morning when the air is most likely to be motionless. A flower picture blurred by motion is a complete flop!
Except for motion, nothing will irritate you more often than the abrupt, frequent, and marked CHANGES IN LIGHTING due to small clouds passing over the sun. Again, early morning has an advantage in normally cloudless desert skies. Clouds may be expected after 10 o’clock on many days.
DEPTH OF FIELD is highly important in flower photography, and you will be gratified with the results if you take pains to have all parts of the picture, except the background, in sharp focus. This desirable objective has become less difficult to attain with the advent of “faster” films which enable you to use the required small diaphragm “stop” without too greatly reducing the shutter speed, and still obtain adequate exposures.
Too many flower photographers fail to get really CLOSE UP PICTURES. A single blossom or a small cluster of blossoms provides a much more attractive and significant picture than an entire plant. One blossom with, perhaps, a bud, one fruit, and a trace of foliage, if well composed, is tops among flower pictures. This objective requires camera equipment with the ability to focus on objects close to the lens. Also it complicates the goal of getting all parts of the picture into sharp focus.