I’ve been playing around with lens flare a lot lately… some photos would turn out, some didn’t… well to be honest, it was more of a happy accident when it did work. I just couldn’t grasp the theory behind the technique, or else I couldn’t put it all together in a way that got me what I wanted when I wanted it.
There were times it all pulled together, through no apparent addition of anything that I did to make it happen. Oh look, lens flare… I would be doubly pleased that it happed to show up… funny how something that we used to feel once ruined the photo, is now so hot.
I read some books, looked online, practiced, and now it’s starting to pull together.
Last night, I am on the ground, laying half in, and half out of the garden bed, kitty treats scattered around in the soil, trying to convince my rather unwilling feline model to sit in the perfect spot. The setting sun should be creating lens flare behind him. But do you think he would turn around? All the convincing in the world wouldn’t work, next time he needs to be hungry, he will do anything for food.
It’s all about learning isn't it? So I got up off of the ground, and shot the newly hatched maple leaves into the setting sun.
If life won’t give you what you want, go and find a backlit leaf… For those of you who wish to give this a try, here is a easy tutorial I found online. FYI, technically, most of these are not lens flare, I was a little too late in the evening to get what I wanted, but Boo has some behind him.