Section 2 Shooting
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Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc.
Follow these environmental guidelines when
photographing flowers and other plants:
• Step, kneel, or lie down carefully when
composing your shot. Do not damage other
plants while you are capturing your image.
• Do not uproot, prune, or break plants to
improve your field of view. If necessary, use
string to tie back intruding foliage, or hold
it out of camera range with your free hand
while releasing the shutter.
• Do not leave behind evidence of your visit.
Return a site to the state in which you found
it by removing all your debris.
Infrared Photography
Striking landscape photos in which sunlit
grass and tree leaves appear as bright, ghostly
white objects can be produced by capturing
infrared light. See Figure 12-25. Infrared
wavelengths of light are not visible to the human
eye. They can, however, be recorded on a digital
sensor or on film that has the proper sensitivity.
In a well-exposed and printed black-and-
white infrared photograph, the leaves of green
plants are bright white and appear to glow.
Chlorophyll in the grass and leaves absorbs most
of the visible light that strikes it, but reflects
most of the infrared wavelengths. As a result,
the leaves and grass blades are bright reflective
objects and appear white.
To obtain the desired recording of infrared
wavelengths, a filter is needed to absorb
unwanted blue and violet wavelengths. The
strongest infrared effects are obtained with the
visually opaque Wratten 87, 87C, or 88A filters.
Focusing cannot be done with the filter in place,
so you must first focus and then mount the filter
over the lens. More practical is the deep red
Wratten 25 filter. Although it darkens the finder
image considerably, focusing through the filter
is still possible. The red filter absorbs blue and
ultraviolet wavelengths. See Figure 12-26.
A
Jack Klasey/Goodheart-Willcox Publisher
Figure 12-24. Insects and flowers. A—A colorful butterfly stands out against green leaves. B—Honeybees are vital to
pollination of many plants.
B
Jack Klasey/Goodheart-Willcox Publisher
Figure 12-25. Grass and leaves reflect almost all the
infrared wavelengths, so they are recorded on film as
strongly lighted objects—in black-and-white prints, they
glow brilliant white.