Camas Portrait
Packer Meadow
Lolo Pass, Idaho

One of the topics I cover in my class on photographing the camas bloom is creating a visual story by capturing a variety of images of your subject. In general this means a wide shot that establishes the setting where you find your subject, a medium shot and a close-up or detail shot. Even if you don't intend to publish your images as a group, using this storytelling approach ensures you will come away with a variety of pictures that show a more complete story.

If you review the images I posted this week of the camas flowers at Packer Meadow, you can see that I began the series with an overall landscape shot with the flowers in the foreground. Then I moved closer to photograph the camas in smaller scenes. And I'm concluding with this portrait of an individual blossom up close.

Thanks to my colleague Doug Johnson for first acquainting me with this approach. If you follow it, you'll discover the views you always shoot (for me, close-ups) and the ones you leave out (for me, wide shots). Adding the latter has expanded my visual repretoire.