PHOTOGRAPHING BLOSSOMING TREES

By C. M. SHIPMAN.

HE mistake is often made in photographing trees in blossom of having most of the tree outlined against the sky, so of course there is no contrast as there would be in a painting where the sky is blue and the blossoms white or pink.

To the eye, there is the contrast in nature of the two colors, but in the print the sky and trees are both white.

One can usually find a position high enough or a tree whose branches droop, or if a background of dark foliaged trees are used, the details of the blossoms are brought out. In dealing with such subject it is advisable to focus sharply and develop the negative to good density, but in printing these negatives to get an artistic result, it is best to use a process like the carbon and print from the back of the negative, thus obtaining softness and pictorial effect.

It will be noticed that the parts of the trees against the sky in the illustration accompanying these notes, scarcely show any evidence of being a tree in blossom but are dark toned like ordinary foliage, bearing out a fact that many do not know or think of when exposing plates that nothing in Nature is as white as the sky, and should be relieved against a darker ground if the values are to be properly rendered.