photography, flowers and photoshop

Mike Laking Digital Photo Artisan : 

Mike Laking Digital Photo Artisan Puerto Vallarta Botanical Gardens Workshop January 6, 2011

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Background I am a self-taught photographer with over 35 years of photography experience. With the exception of commissions, I focus almost exclusively on flowers. I have taken thousands of pictures across Canada, Europe, the U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean islands and my pieces are in collections across Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Recently I was awarded Grand Prize Winner of the 2010 Puerto Vallarta Botanical Gardens Photography Contest, and Winner of First Prize in Category, Best in Class and Best Digital Photograph, Ottawa Orchid Show 2010.

Flowers by Mike : 

Flowers by Mike My flower photo's are taken everywhere, with my favourites being the huge, exotic tropical‘s. I love taking extreme close-ups of flowers that fill the frame and are reminiscent of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work. A recent influence in my photography is the work of Christopher Beane who inspired me to start shooting against black backgrounds and looking at new and create ways of photographing flowers. Google him and check out his work.

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Equipment I use a Canon Powershot SX 30 IS camera which has a 30x zoom lens with optical image stabilization and a variety of automatic and scene settings. It also takes excellent High Definition video. It has a 12.1 megapixel CCD, 2.5” LCD monitor and can shoot in RAW mode although I currently choose not to. I use a tripod and a monopod to shot and rely on natural lighting for almost 100% of my shots. I rarely use a flash.

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Process Using Photoshop © CS5, I import my pictures, clean them up, crop them, and start to work on them using a variety of painting techniques, adjusting of levels, balance and brightness, and by applying a number of filters and actions. Photoshop © is available packaged in Creative Suite with several other programs or you can purchase it individually. Adobe is currently selling version CS5.

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Original photo of “Pink Beauty” taken January 2010

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“Pink Beauty”, winner 2010 Botanical Gardens Photography contest.

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I start off with a picture such as this one that was chosen by a client.

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And from it I created “Silk”, a limited edition of 10 of which one remains.

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This was taken at the Franklin Conservatory in Columbus four years ago.

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It became a limited edition of 10 named “French Ruffles”.

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A rooftop flower pot taken three weeks ago.

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Became “Pinka Colada”, and will be offered in a limited edition of 5.

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My inspiration – my backyard. Thanks for your interest in my work. Mike