Although general plant photography is a minor niche for professional-level photographers, the number of people who have chosen to start their own garden of plants be it outside or inside has seen a sharp spike in recent years. “Urban Junglers” who grow their gardens in their apartment has seen an exponential spike in growth too and then when you couple that with the rise of social media, it’s not surprising that many people are looking to share their jungles on their social media pages.
With the number of urban junglers surging right now, we have even seen the rise of popular bloggers, YouTubers, and Instagrammers in the space who are starting to actually earn an income from their plants and sharing their knowledge online. Due to this, we have noticed more and more people reaching out with each passing month asking questions based around things such as “how do you pose plants?“.
Due to already seeing so many people asking this each month as well as fully expecting this trend to continue over the coming years, we have decided to dedicate this article to posing your plants to try and help you get the best photographs possible. These tips and tricks should work for both outdoor and indoor plants with most of them being very quick and easy to do too.
What Are You Capturing Your Photograph With
So the first thing that we have to get out of the way is what are you actually capturing your photographs with. Although some of the people who have started to make money from their plants via blogs, YouTube or social media channels may have picked up a mirrorless or DSLR camera, many of our readers will probably be using their smartphones.
We have lost count of the number of people who instantly think that they are at a disadvantage when it comes to capturing their photographs with a smartphone but this is not the case. Not only do modern smartphones have excellent cameras on them but you are also able to buy a bunch of excellent, removable smartphone lenses now to further improve your image quality.
Many of the popular bloggers, YouTubers, and Instagrammers in the plan space started by capturing their photographs and videos on their smartphone and many of them still use it. Our main point is that when it comes to image quality, you can definitely get started with a smartphone, the only area where it may hold you back is with some tighter plant poses due to the wide angle lenses on your cameras but then then, you can usually find a work around such as cropping the photograph after capturing it.
Study The Plant
This is without a doubt the most commonly skipped over tip when it comes to finding the perfect pose for your plants. So many people seem to just “fluff up” their plants and be done with it. They give no thought to the competition, colours, textures, background, or lighting and unfortunately it really does hold them back.
Thankfully though, this is a quick, easy, and free fix as you can spend a minute or two simply studying your plant to think of a number of different ways that you will be able to pose it for your photograph. Our recommendation is to usually try to think of three different ways that you will be able to pose your plants for your photograph and then choose your favourite from there. If you are running a blog or YouTube channel around your plants then taking the time to capture photographs of all three can be worth it too.
Another thing that we have noticed people doing recently is that they may actually tilt some taller potted plants or even lay them horizontally for the photograph to better integrate them. This can add unique colors, petal shapes, and textures that may have previously been left out due to one of your plants being much taller than the others that you are photographing.
Control Their Growth
Although controlling the growth of a plant has been used by gardeners for decades if not centuries, it is becoming more and more popular for people who are specifically looking to pose their plants although it is usually people who have indoor plants who do this. The concept is simple, once your plant starts to sprout its buds for flowers, you will gently tie the sprouts down so you are able to plan how they will grow.
This causes no harm to the plant and allows you to encourage it to grow its buds in specific directions to allow you to cultivate the post of the plant into some unique shapes. Although this doe take a ton of time, it can be worth it if you are specifically looking to share your photographs on Instagram as the unique shapes catch the eye and allow you to draw people to your social media profiles to potentially grow them faster.
Arrange Your Plants If Possible
This is another thing that we often see people make mistakes with when it comes to finding a good pose for their plants. The photograph above shows only one way that you can change the physical arrangement of them on your counter top. As you can see, the arrangement mixes different sizes, shapes, textured, colours, and distances between plants to improve the photograph and this takes seconds to do.
Another way that you are able to arrange your plants is to actually push plants to longer stems and flowers together. This can be a great way for you to keep different plants in their own individual plant pots while being able to arrange all of their flowers together for your photograph.
If you are looking to become a content producer in this niche then this really can be a great way of providing you with a ton of content ideas based around your plants too. It allows you to use different plants from around your house, bring them togeather and capture photographs of their flowers side by side that you wouldent usually be able to take.
This can allow you to scale the content on your blog, YouTube channel, or Instagram page quickly and when you mix and match various plants, the number of ways that you are actually able to pose them increases exponentially. If you do have a little downtime throughout the day, this is well worth playing with as you can come up with some great plant poses but it can take a little time to get everything together.
Prune Your Plants Prior To Photographing
Although this is not strictly posing your plants, it definitely helps to improve your photograph as a quick prune allows you to remove any unwanted leaves or petals. Although there are some purists who will leave the dead leaves and petals in their photographs to show the plant as it is, most people prefer to remove them. This tip only takes a number of seconds and can offer a vast improvement in the quality of your photograph so it is well worth doing.
Improve The Lighting
Again, this is not specific to how you will go about arranging the pose of your plant but it offers a vast improvement to your image quality. If it is potted plants that you are looking to pose then you can usually move them to an area of your home or garden that offers better lighting. If the plants are growing in the ground then you can sometimes move lamps to their location to improve this.
When it comes to the actual pose of your plants, having better lighting can open up a bunch of different possibilities that you may previously never thought of. When you come up with your initial pose ideal for your photograph, it is common for larger plants and flowers to cast a shadow on the rest potentially limiting what you can do but taking lighting into consideration for your planning phase can prevent this.
Conclusion
That concludes our article going over our various tips and tricks on how you are able to improve your plant photography by taking a few steps to pose your plants and flowers prior to capturing the photograph. We hope that you have found our article helpful and that you are able to improve the image quality of your photographs of your plants in the future from out tips and tricks.
