After 43 years in the Defence Industry, Hemant decided in his retirement to take an entirely different line of work and to become a photographic expert taking beautiful images of flowers, landscapes and gardens. His photographs are used in Calendars and greeting cards and he has obtained numerous honours for his photography, and is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society. He is passionate about photography and walking …In the course of his slide show of many beautiful flowers, he was able to include a number of useful hints for photographers generally, and specifically for photographers of flowers. He said that the best camera is the camera you have with you. This has become much easier with the coming of the smart phone, such as the I phones, which now have superb lenses, but he has practised photography for many years and is expert in taking photographs with film as well as digital photography. His view is that there is no difference between film and digital photographs. He does not use Zoom lenses and he does not use atomisers on the flowers to create a special effect as atomisers can kill the plant being photographed. He generally uses a tripod. He does not use flash as he finds that gives the flowers a waxy appearance, and he has not invested large sums of money in Macro lenses. The best day for taking photographs of flowers was not a sunny day, but a day which is overcast but bright. A sunny day dissolves the colours whereas an overcast day enables the natural colours of the flowers to be displayed to their best advantage.
His favourite flower was “the one I am going to take tomorrow”, and he said that “You are only as good as your last picture”.
He has become a friend of Kew Gardens and a large number of the beautiful pictures which were shown to the meeting in his slide show were taken at Kew Gardens, and being a Friend allows him entry at 8am. rather than the usual 10am. which enables him to take photographs without being disturbed.
The photographs in the slide show were too numerous to list in detail, but he is clearly attracted by tulips, autumn crocus, blanket flowers, pasque flowers, poppies, clarkia, asters, geraniums, gladioli and irises. He has spent a lot of time in the Alpine house at Kew, and at the end of the talk there were many photographs of water lilies.
Please join us next month on Tuesday 17th October 2023 at 7.30 p.m. when Dr Twigs Way will be talking on the History of Suburban Gardens. The meeting will be open to all members and visitors. We look forward to seeing you then.
Charles Duchenne
19th September 2023
www.biddenhamgardenersassociation.org.uk
