Floral Portrait Photography

As a photographer and a creative, it’s so important to have projects that are just for you. Shoots where you can get creative, experiment and push yourself without pressure to meet certain deliverables. That’s just what this shoot was…

It’s wattle season here in Port Stephens and I’ve been driving past a particularly lush wattle tree every day on my way to work, we’re still lingering in winter so it’s just too dark to shoot before and after work. It felt like the never-ending week, but Saturday finally came around and I messaged my good friend & fellow flower-lover Hannah.

It definitely helps having a model who is happy to wake up early on a Saturday and isn’t afraid to climb into a tree with all the bees! This shoot was taken entirely on my 35mm prime lens - it’s quickly becoming a firm favourite!

This shoot just proved to me all over again that morning light is my absolute favourite for portraits, it’s so fresh and creamy. Shooting with the light filtering in from behind the trees helped achieve the soft skin tones and combined with an f-stop of 1.4 - gave some truly dreamy bokeh blur.

The biggest challenge was definitely in the editing - trying to balance the vibrant yellows and deep greens whilst keeping true to skin tones AND not losing the beautiful blue of Hannah’s eyes!