Description

If not, why not? Flower shows can be a great place for photography. They have plants in the prime of bloom and are often set in very scenic locations. Lynn and I have been to a couple of Orchid shows and a Rose show here in Orlando and enjoyed each of them. The most recent was last weekend’s Greater Orlando Orchid Show and Sale held at the Albin Polasek museum in Winter Park. The museum is an interesting place to visit on its own, and is set in a beautiful lot close to Rollins college. This photo is of Polasek’s bronze sculpture of Svantovit , located in the back garden behind the museum where the orchid show was being held.

Svantovit

Photo hints

The one problem with this type of photo op is that you have to be pro-active and search it out. Lynn noticed an announcement for this show in our local paper. The table in the Summary section below has a link for a Google search that may help you locate upcoming flower shows in Central Florida.
orchid

Etiquette: The purpose of these shows is to sell flowers, not to be your personal photo studio. I think it would be rude to drag your tripod, lighting gear, reflectors, etc. in to one of the booths selling orchids and set up a shot and interfere with the vendor’s business. So be polite – and buy an orchid. You’ll enjoy it and you can make many photos of it in your home studio!

orchid

Lenses: Macro recommended. If you don’t have one, bring whatever you do have that will focus as closely as possible. A mid range zoom lens might also be good to bring for the other things that are around the venue where the show is taking place.
orchid

Tripod: Not recommended – see above. There can be a lot of people at these shows. Most of them are there to look at and buy flowers, not photograph them or wait until you get out of the way.

Flash: Might be very handy to fill in shadows, especially in the shade or under canopies. You might even want to get fancy and try using an off camera flash triggered with your on camera pop up flash.

For people new to flower photography, there’s quite a lot of how-to information on the web. For more information, you might try browsing through the results from this Google blog search for “flower photography how to”.

Summary

My Gallery (27 total photos):	https://edrosack.com/090530_Orchids/
Website:	search google for Central Florida flower shows
Location:	633 Osceola Avenue, Winter Park, Florida 32789
Central Florida Photo Op Rating:	Great intermittent potential

If you ever travel through Dulles International, it is well worth scheduling yourself in early or out late so you can take a short side trip. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center annex of the National Air and Space Museum is located a few minutes south of the airport. You can take a shuttle to and from the airport, or follow Highway 28 (the first exit as you leave the airport) south until you see the sign. It only takes 10 – 15 minutes to get there from the airport. Entrance to the museum is free, but parking is $12, so take a few friends (all in one car).

The Smithsonian needed additional space to display items that they don’t have room for at the downtown Washington, D.C. location. This is very good news for traveling photographers. For a small investment of time (2 – 3 hours) you can see a lot of aviation and space history. They have Wright Brother flyers (click on the photo above for a larger version), an SR-71, a Concorde, the Space Shuttle Enterprise, The Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer and much more. Some of these items are beautiful, and all are historic.

Equipment: I took my Canon G9, which did very well. You’ll mostly want a wide angle lens for the interior shots – these things are big and you can get close to most of them. The light is pretty dim, so use a fast lens and plan on at least bracing your camera for longer exposures as I did. Flash won’t be too effective due to the distance involved.

The rest of my photos for this post are here.

On a side note, after you get to your hotel, keep looking for photographs. I made this one out of my hotel window.

Central Florida Photo Ops

What and where they are and how to photograph them.

Tag Archives: museum

Have you ever taken your camera to a flower show?

Description

Photo hints

Summary

Dulles Air and Space Museum