Flowers are one of the most beautiful creations in the world. They are so delicate in their stance and color that often times, you can’t help but take dozens of photos of them at a time. But with all that beauty stored in your camera library, it’s a shame to not to share them with your friends. But the thing is, how do you make use of those images in an interesting way? You could upload them, choose a good footage for your Facebook cover photo, or find that perfect shot and upload to Instagram, or choose one as the wallpaper for your phone. But what about those times when you look through the floral images over and over again, the photos looks so beautiful, but it still hasn’t gotten to that level where it is profile cover photo quality. What can we do with those photos?
Here are some tips on how to make use of those beautiful flowers. Before we go into the collaging details, first we need to analyze the photos:
What angle was the flower taken?
a. Is the flower the main focal point?
b. Does the flower seem to be more of a background color or texture?
c. Is it a close up of a flower, or a group of flowers?
Now that we know what kind of flower photos we have, the next question is:
What is the story you want to tell?
Based on your story, you need to figure out what is the main focal point of your collage, here are some examples to illustrate:
1. The story of the collage is to illustrate a person or people
Sometimes you want to highlight a person, in that case everything else is secondary and serves as an effect to enhance the main subject.
In this case, here are a few ways flower photos can be used:
a. the flower is used as a sticker decoration around the photo: in a freestyle collage, you can use photos that show single flowers as the main focal point and use the clip feature to cut the whole shape of the flower out so that the flower can look like a “sticker” decoration. The reason why this works well is because you can see the whole and complete detail of the flower, making it good to use as a sticker, place the flower stickers around the edges of the main photo, and you can get a floral sticker effect.
b. The flower is an accessory within the photo: you can also cut out a string of flowers with the clip feature and make it into a flower crown accessory.
c. Flowers are used as a background image: you can use close up flower shots as frames to frame a portrait. What you can do is first find your flower photo and set it as a background image, then, put in your photo. In this case the color of the flower will effect how the whole collage will look as a whole. Softer colors and textures will make a photo that has is more masculine or has a stronger personality to look softer or more elegant.
2. The story of the collage is about weekend trip or event
a. Flowers are used to enhance the feeling of the day: for example if the story were about a day trip to the botanical garden, within this photo, the main focus would be on the people who went, we place them in the largest slot to show the importance. How do we give an idea of what they experienced that day? It was a garden that had mostly cactuses, so then, we could see a cactus as a second focal point, the reason why this cactus was chosen could be because it was their favorite cactus in the garden, this will make the collage more memorable. For the third slot, it might not be good to have another photo that has a clear focal point, or else it will be hard to focus on the main point of the whole collage, so then, it could be good to add in a photo that doesn’t have a main focal point, it serves more like a background that will enhance the subject of the collage, thus we can see within this composition, the main focal point are people, the secondary one is a cactus, and the third photo enhances the theme.
b. Flowers to help balance a focal point: in this example, you can see on the top row, the main point is the person who went to the cafe, on the bottom row, the main point is the food that she ordered. To maintain a simple composition where there are just two focal points, the other two images should probably serve more as background images to enhance the vibe of the afternoon.
3. The story of the collage is about a place: in this example, the story of the collage is about the coffee shop. We can see that there is a photo of the shop, the plants are used as texture to bring out a feeling that this place has a lot of greenery. The story could stop here, but it might seem as if it is lacking a focal point because all of the images feel as though they are background images with no main subject. If we add some text to the photo, that would be the main focal point, and it would almost seem like it is a poster advertising the cafe.
4. The story of the collage is about the flowers: in this example, the photos are all succulents. The two photos on the right side are more like background floral images, whereas the largest photo on the left has two focal points, a large succulent and a rock that takes the attention. This collage in itself is quite nice as it gives a natural feeling, however it might seem like there is something lacking to this collage. Some ways of bringing out more of a story to it is to add words or stickers, or images to the rock, or to just add in a quote.
Hope this tutorial can help you all get some ideas on how to use flowers to decorate your photos better for the spring. Please feel free to comment if you have another ways to use floral photos!