Soft Petals: An Ed Vatza Photography Project
I love flowers. I love to look at them. I love to smell theme. And I love to photograph them. I find them beautiful; I find them sensual… words that may seem strange coming from a big hulking guy like me.
What has always attracted me the most aren’t the fields of flowers stretching as far as the eye could see but rather the intricacies of the single bloom. For this reason, I have almost always turned to my macro lenses when photographing flowers.
For years, I have gotten up close and personal with flowers of all kinds. During the winter months, I worked with cut flowers in my dining room. In the spring and summer, I worked with wildflowers filling the fields, woods and meadows. And year around, I would head to gardens such as Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA to photograph their exotic blooms.
I worked hard at capturing every detail of the flower – the petals, the pistil, the stamens, and the stems. And I think I did it well. But I never felt that I had anything unique, anything that everyone else shooting flowers didn’t have. So I started to search for a different way of looking at flowers. And that search has lead to my “Soft Petals” project.
The following are examples of “Soft Petals” images made using the Cokin Wide Angle Center Spot filter with a long (Sigma 150mm) macro lens stopped down. It is the look that now defines the Ed Vatza Photography “Soft Focus” project. I like it… a lot… and hope you do to!
What has always attracted me the most aren’t the fields of flowers stretching as far as the eye could see but rather the intricacies of the single bloom. For this reason, I have almost always turned to my macro lenses when photographing flowers.
For years, I have gotten up close and personal with flowers of all kinds. During the winter months, I worked with cut flowers in my dining room. In the spring and summer, I worked with wildflowers filling the fields, woods and meadows. And year around, I would head to gardens such as Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA to photograph their exotic blooms.
I worked hard at capturing every detail of the flower – the petals, the pistil, the stamens, and the stems. And I think I did it well. But I never felt that I had anything unique, anything that everyone else shooting flowers didn’t have. So I started to search for a different way of looking at flowers. And that search has lead to my “Soft Petals” project.
The following are examples of “Soft Petals” images made using the Cokin Wide Angle Center Spot filter with a long (Sigma 150mm) macro lens stopped down. It is the look that now defines the Ed Vatza Photography “Soft Focus” project. I like it… a lot… and hope you do to!
Ed Vatza is an Eastern Pennsylvania-based photographer, speaker and workshop leader. In addition to his “Soft Petals” project, Ed is also working on four other photographic projects including “Morning Becomes Electric” (sunrise photography); “Contrasts” (B&W photography); “Simplicity” (photominimalism) and the “Manhattan Project: Alone Among Millions” (street photography). Ed has spoken to clubs around the region on topics such as “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: Great Images from Your Own Backyard” and “Morning Becomes Electric” and is currently working on a presentation entitled “From Landscape to Street” which covers the application of landscape photography skills and techniques to street photography. He also leads photo workshops in places such as Acadia National Park, the Hudson River Valley and the aforementioned Longwood Gardens.
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