Spring in Paris! It is the time of long days, great light and generous nature. What a better time to photograph flowers and discover Paris from its most colourful side. We propose you a photo tour from the Jardin des Plantes to the Musée de la sculpture en plein air (Museum of open air sculptures) next to the Seine river.
When photographing flowers there are some important things to consider.
Background
This is probably the most important point to give your flowers the recognition they deserve. Werther you are photographing one or many flowers, it is important that the subject of your photo is evident. The foreground and the background should be easily identified and your background should fulfil the entire frame. There are two things that will help you: background blur and colour. For blurring your background try using a great aperture or choosing a flower that is separated from its background. As for colours, try uniform backgrounds of complementary colours and avoid the sky.
Composition:
Search for the best way to ensure your flowers are the main visual points and that they are seen from the proper angle. Try getting down to have them in front of you and explore different points of view. Working in different positions will let you discover details that might be interesting for your images. If you do not have a macro lens and you want the whole flower to be neat, try a zoom and working at some distance. If you want rather a detail of an image work closely and use a great aperture.
Light:
In sunny days, it is most likely that you will get a strong natural light. If you can not avoid the most luminous hours. Unless you want high contrast photographies, the best is to photograph some of the flowers existing in shaded or filtered areas (for example, filtered by foliage). This way colours will not be saturated and details will be more visible.
Wind:
Who has not been fulfilled by the dance of flowers with the wind? Most of us dream about this image, however, this evocative scene can be a problem if we don’t have the proper gear. If you can not avoid windy days when photographing flowers, the shutter speed of your camera should be very high. Otherwise they will be blurred.
Now, with this information, feet to the street and your camera in hand, here is some information about the locations of your flower photo tour in Paris.
The Jardin des Plantes was created in 1635 and named the Jardin du Roi -the King’s garden. From its origins it was conceived as a botanical garden where it will be grown and explored medicinal and atypical plants. For over four centuries, the Jardin des Plantes have seen its collection grown and being complemented by many new species as journeys to other continent became more common. It is today part of the Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle (National Museum of Natural History) and in the large campus includes the Gallery of Evolution, four big greenhouses and different pavilions with the geology and the palaeontology galleries.
In the central terrace, built as a French garden, diverse flower collections are planted regularly. The rose garden in the lateral alley is one of the most picturesque and romantic spots with sculptures, pergolas and almost 400 different varieties of roses. The Dutch style gardens (small gardens organized in geometric patterns with colourful flowers and bushes) are a perfect rest corner before continuing under the plane trees.
Coming out from the Jardin des Plantes we will arrive to the Jardin Tino Rossi and the fabulous Museum of open air sculptures conceived by the architect Daniel Baldani in 1980. This green spot in front of the Seine river has a permanent open exhibit of almost 40 sculptures from the XX century and it’s famous among Parisians for being the meeting point for dancing tango in warm weekends.
