Marcelo Deguchi has been working with
photography for the past 15 years. Having studied
architecture briefly, he discovered his passion
for photography analysing contrast and texture
through learning how to draw and paint, which
eventually brought him closer to Graphic Design,
the option he had at the time to be closer to
photography. Most of his initial photography work
was based on photographing what was around him:
friends and relatives.
After moving to London to extend his knowledge
in photography whilst taking a Masters Degree
at University of the Arts London, he decided to
shift from portraiture to landscape photography
and then, from landscape to still life photography.
Marcelo stills sees arrangements as portraits.
He has exhibited in his native home country Brazil,
Berlin and London, where he currently lives.
The objective of this online course is to inspire
you to see images in a new way. It is not an
in-depth photography course, as this would
be a lengthy course in its own. It is more of
a way to teach how to look at images from
different perspectives, and to understand how
photography can help you to create your own
unique work.
Nowadays, it’s just so easy to take your
smartphone out of your pocket and start to
randomly take images of everything that’s
around you. So in this class, I’ll try to motivate
you to step back, slow down, and focus on
what you’re aiming for: to learn about what
feels right to you; what feels wrong to you; in
order to find your own aesthetics and your own
vision when creating images.
One of the most challenging things in photography is
that since its inception, it was always related to depicting/
documenting reality. It was a big movement that freed
painters at that time, as they didn’t need to depict realism
anymore, as photography seemed to have replaced that. It
didn’t take long for artists using photography to realise that
wasn’t the case. This liberated them to use the medium as
a way of self expression. Even so, until now, some people
still see photography as a representation of reality; this,
however, is not the case. The simple act of framing an
image already narrows your vision, your idea, your bias,
your narrative and your intention: the message you want to
convey.
There is a good analogy here when thinking about the floral
Dutch paintings of the 1700s which I always refer to when
thinking about photography and more so when thinking
about still life photography. At that moment in history,
artists didn’t have access to the actual flowers they were
depicting in their works. They would often rely on botanical
studies, or even other artists’ paintings, who commonly
relied on their artistic freedom to represent new plant
specimens they would find during their travels.
In a similar fashion, photography has always used ways of
deception to create images. Photoshop might be critised,
but it only replicates the same tools that the earliest
photographers used to alter their images in their darkrooms
using chemicals and filters.
One of the main things to keep in mind when taking
pictures is that you are always trying to send a message, to
tell a story. Ask yourself: why are you taking that picture,
and what do you want to express by doing that. It is a
dauting task at first, but it will certainly help you to be more
conscious of the environment around you, and learn more
about your own creations.
One of the most important concepts in
photography is understanding how light works.
Before you start shooting, try to pay attention
to where the light is coming from. It will make a
huge difference depending on direction, angles,
intensity. One very important aspect to keep
in mind is the difference in the amount of light
hitting your subject and your background. The
more light hits your background, the more it
will detract attention from your subject in your
image, so it’s a good practice to see how the
light works in the environment you’re working
with before starting to take pictures. On
the other hand, if you feel the environment/
background is important to convey your
message in your image, you might choose to
have more light into the background, so your
arrangement/subject blends more or connect
more to the background.
LIGHT QUALITY
There are two basic types of light you can use when
talking about light quality: these are hard light and soft
light.
Hard light is what you usually experience on a sunny day
without clouds: it creates sharp, well defined and crispy
edged shadows.
Soft light is what you usually experience on cloudy
days: the clouds act as a diffuser to the sunlight, making
shadow flurrier, less defined and softer.
Most of the time, when photographing flowers, you
would be aiming to use soft light, as they lower the
contrasts in the image and make shadows less apparent,
so it emphasises textures and depth. Of course this is
not a rule, as you can use hard light and deep, sharp
shadows to emphasise your style and aesthetics - and
that might emphasise the strength of your brand/style.
Nonetheless, if you want to show the most texture,
volume, shape and depth in your arrangements, soft
light will be the easier choice most of the time. You
can create soft light by adding any sort of translucent
material between your light source and your subject - it
can be a thin white fabric, tracing or baking paper, or
using professional photography lighting sets such as soft
boxes. Anything that is translucent and large in surface
area can be used to make the light softer on the subject
your are photographing.
SOFT LIGHT EXAMPLE HARD LIGHT EXAMPLE

LIGHT QUALITY

Notice the difference between the shadows created when using soft light (left) and hard light (right). The amount of
texture and detail you have using soft light is undeniable, and it’s the easiest way to work with light when photographing
flowers if your intention is to highlight texture and depth in your image.
LIGHT DIRECTION

Light direction is another important aspect to keep in mind when photographing flowers. It impacts a lot on
how much texture and depth you see in the final image.

FRONTAL LIGHT

Frontal light will usually hit your subject evenly. That

means that you will have every single area of your
image exposed to the same light, which will most
probably result in a very flat image, without depth.

In most of the cases in floristry, you would like to show

the three dimensionality of your arrangements, so this
is a very tricky light set up to work with, unless you’re
aiming for a more graphic style approach to your
photography.
SIDE LIGHT

Side lights are the easiest way to photograph flowers.

They emphasise contrast and shadows, and as long
as you’re using soft lights, you will end up with a good
result.

One of the downsides of using side lights is that you

might end up with too much contrast or shadows. This
can be corrected by using reflectors or light bouncers
which will reduce the contrast in your final image.
BACK LIGHT

This is not usually seen in flower images; instead is

more popular in cinema and more graphic oriented
photography. When you use backlight, you will usually
end up with a silhouette of your subject. Most of the
time in floristry photography, you will see this effect
in wedding shoots, when the sun comes from the
back of a bride and you cannot really see any details
in the foreground - it emphasises the mood of the
photograph instead of trying to show details of the
main subject.

You can push it to the extreme so that when you only

see a silhouette of your subject if your focus is on
shape instead of colour or texture.
This is a very short introduction to basic camera
controls, which are essential to understand how
any photographic camera works. Once you
understand and master these elements, it will
give you more freedom to explore your own
creative vision in photography, as you won’t
need to worry too much about the technical
aspects of photography, allowing you to spend
more time on the message you are trying to
convey with your images.
I have divided this part of the class into three
main subjects: shutter speed, aperture and
sensor sensitivity (ISO).
SHUTTER SPEED
When speaking about speed in photography, it’s about
the amount of time that your camera sensor will be
exposed to light. Photography cameras have settings in
which you can select what shutter speed to work with,
and they are increments of fractions of seconds.
This happens in your smartphone as well, but it is usually
automatically controlled by the phone, so you have
no control over it. There are many apps that allow you
to manually control shutter speed, such as Adobe’s
Lightroom app.
Most of the time, when photographing flowers, you
want to ‘freeze’ the image, so you have no camera
shake. In order to do so, you will need to use a shutter
speed that is at least 1/60 of a second.
Anything slower than that, like 1/30 of a second, will
probably result in camera shake, unless you use a tripod
when photographing. I always recommend using a
tripod, remote switch, or simply a timer, because not
only does it ensure that you won’t have camera shake,
but it also allows you to step back and slow down, to
work on your composition with more time, instead of
just frantically taking pictures with your smartphone or
camera.
SLOW SHUTTER SPEED EXAMPLE FAST SHUTTER SPEED EXAMPLE
ISO: 100 ISO: 2000
APERTURE: f 22 APERTURE: f 5.6
SHUTTER SPEED: 2.5 sec SHUTTER SPEED: 1/125 sec

SHUTTER SPEED

Notice the difference between the how blurry the background is in both images, due to the difference in shutter speed.
These images were taken using a tripod, so there was no camera shake, but the fabric in the backdrop was moving, so
the camera couldn’t freeze the image in the longer exposure (left).
APERTURE
Aperture in photography will control the
openness of your lenses through which the light
passes and hits your camera sensor, in a similar
way to which our own eyes work: our irises
change their diameter allowing more light in or
out depending on the amount of light that is
available in our surroundings.
Camera lenses work in the same way, so you
can adjust the openness of the lens to fit the
light conditions you deal with in a specific
light setting. This is controlled by the lens’
diaphragm, which will control the size of the
openness of the lens.
WIDE APERTURE EXAMPLE
APERTURE X SHUTTER SPEED
One of the most important aspects to learn from this
is the difference between aperture and shutter speed.
Shutter speed will control the amount of time the
camera will be exposed to light, whilst aperture will
control the physical size of the opening which will allow
light to hit the camera sensor.
Another very important aspect about aperture settings
in photography, is that different settings will affect
aesthetically how your final image will look like. The
wider your aperture is (i.e. f1.8), you’ll have more things
out of focus in your image. This is very useful to guide
viewer’s eyes to the most important parts of your
image. On the other hand, if you feel the background
of your image is important to your composition, you
should use a smaller aperture (i.e. f11).
NARROW APERTURE EXAMPLE
ISO

ISO controls how sensitive the camera sensor
will be when capturing light. The lower the ISO
number is, the less sensitive the sensor will be in
capturing the light that enters the camera.
High ISO numbers mean that the sensor will be
more sensitive to light, so you won’t need to expose
it for a longer shutter speed or using a wider aperture
to compensate the lack of light when shooting. If
you’re shooting under direct sunlight outdoors, you
will definitely choose a very low ISO, whilst shooting
indoors or after dusk, you will have to increase ISO to
compensate for the lack of light available.

The drawback of relying on ISO to compensate for lack

of light is that the higher the ISO number, the more
noise you will have in your image, resulting in colour
aberration and lack of definition in your images. That
becomes much more noticeable especially when you’re
photographing with smartphones.

LOW ISO EXAMPLE HIGH ISO EXAMPLE

ISO: 100 ISO: 800
APERTURE: f 8 APERTURE: f 4.5
SHUTTER SPEED: 1/250 sec SHUTTER SPEED: 1/15 sec
THE EXPOSURE TRIANGLE

The reason why it’s so important to understand the three basic concepts of shutter speed, aperture and ISO is
because they correlate and work together in photography in order to get a correct exposure, which means the correct
amount of light that the camera sensor will be exposed to. The exposure triangle is a good visual representation of that
relationship, which helps to visualise how you can manage shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings in order to get the
exposure you want.

As an example, if you’re shooting in an environment with low light, you would either increase the ISO in your camera
(so it’s more sensitive to light), open your aperture (so there’s more light coming in), and use a longer shutter speed
(so the camera is exposed to light for longer). You will have to commit and decide what’s best for the purpose of the
photoshoot. Let’s say you want the background to be in sharp focus; you will need to use a narrow aperture, thus
committing to use a longer shutter speed or increasing your ISO. On the other hand, if you just want to show a detail
shot of your arrangement, you can use a very wide aperture, which will allow you to use a quicker shutter speed and
ISO to get the same exposure to your image.

Notice that using the exposure triangle as a visual reference, you can visualise in the case above that widening the
aperture of your lens from f5.6 to f2.8 will allow you to use a quicker shutter speed (from 1/60s to 1/250s), without
having to rely on changing ISO settings. The correlation between shutter speed, aperture and ISO work in the same
way, and you will always prioritise one setting over the others.
COMPOSITION
The main goal when you’re trying to get the best
composition in your image, is that you’re trying
to get your viewers to spend more time looking
at your picture. In doing so, you can ‘guide’ the
viewer’s eyes across your image.
RULE OF THIRDS: THE GRID
RULE OF THIRDS
One of the most important things to learn from this
is that you will often run across to a technique often
called the Rule of Thirds: in photography, you will
often find a grid that will split your frame in thirds, both
horizontally and vertically.
By placing elements in your frame following these lines,
and especially where they cross each other - places we
call ‘focal points’ within your frame, you will get a more
well balanced image.
RULE OF THIRDS: FOCAL POINTS
LIGHT
One of the most important things to think
when working with photography is working with
light. There are so many options when choosing
your light sources, and the most obvious one will
be natural light: widely available, and for free.
The drawback of using it is that you will have to
compromise on the light direction, time of the
day and the weather.
If you’re using artificial light, it can be as simple
as a desk lamp, you’re limiting your light sources
to one type of light. Once you start adding
more light sources, the more difficult it will be
to control and manage the overall lighting for
your photoshoot.
TUNGSTEN FLUORESCENT
(3200K) (4000K)
COLOUR TEMPERATURE CHART MEASURED IN KELVIN (K)
Color temperatures over 5000K are called ‘cool colours’ (blueish), while lower colour temperatures
(2700–3000K) are called ‘warm colours’ (yellowish). The fact that ‘warm’ lighting in this sense
actually has a ‘cooler’ colour temperature often leads to confusion.
COLOUR TEMPERATURE
Every different light source will have a different colour
temperature. You will probably notice that a candle light
looks much warmer than a fluorescent light bulb. That’s
why it is important to keep consistent on using the same
colour temperature lights when photographing your
subject, as your camera will try to adjust colour settings
accordingly.
Most cameras and even smartphone apps will have
a white balance setting, which will help you override
automatic controls and allow you to calibrate and
change the colour balance - which we often call WHITE
BALANCE in photography, in order to display the most
accurate colours in the final images.
Using a grey card, most cameras and even on apps on
smartphones like Adobe Lightroom, you will have an
option to customise your white balance settings and get
the most accurate colour setting according to the lights
available to you in any specific setup, as long as you’re
using just one type of lighting.
DAYLIGHT OVERCAST
(5500K) (6500K)
CONTRAST
There are two different types of contrast
that we will be exploring in this class, which
are important concepts to enhance focal
points and direct attention to your subject
in your images.
THE COLOUR WHEEL
Visual representation of the visible colour
spectrum.
TONAL CONTRAST
Tonal contrast is about the relationship between darker and
brighter areas in your image. It has nothing to do with colour,
but simply the amount of brightness in specific areas of your
image.
Our eyes are usually drawn to brighter areas in a photograph,
so it’s a good way to emphasise certain areas within your
frame. Higher tonal contrast images are usually more
dramatic, as you have a bigger conflict between darker areas
and brighter areas. Low tonal contrast images are usually
calmer, more harmonious and have a ‘dreamy’ feel to them.
COLOUR CONTRAST
Colour contrast is about the relationship between the colours
in the visible spectrum of light, as represented in a colour
wheel.
High colour contrast is when you use colours that are on the
opposite sides of the spectrum in the colour wheel. Bringing
colours that are on the opposite side of the spectrum will
emphasise the contrast between them.
Low tonal contrast, on the other hand, is when you use
colours that are closer to each other on the colour wheel.
Low tonal contrast often generates a more pale, less dramatic
image.
HIGH TONAL CONTRAST EXAMPLE LOW TONAL CONTRAST EXAMPLE

Notice how in this example, without using colours, you In the other hand, in this example you can see that there’s
can emphasise the subject against a dark backdrop. little difference between brighter areas or darker areas of
the image. The subject is blending into the background.
HIGH COLOUR CONTRAST EXAMPLE
Notice how in this example we emphasise the contrast
between colours - orange and yellow hues against blue,
both in the flower arrangement and the background.
LOW COLOUR CONTRAST EXAMPLE
On the other hand, in this example you can see that
there’s little difference between the colours within the
arrangement or the background. Most of the colours used
are close to each other in the colour wheel. Notice as well
that there is also a low tonal contrast in this image - and
very little difference in brightness in most of the image.
All of the previous topics worked so far in this BASIC ADJUSTMENT SETTINGS
class are really important because the more
you manage to control your image during the
WHITE BALANCE
photoshoot, the less time you will have to spend
This will affect the general colour temperature of your
in post production. Nevertheless, you will always
images, if your camera wasn’t correctly calibrated
need to tweak your images a little, depending during the photoshoot.
on how and where you will be displaying your
images. EXPOSURE
This will control the overall brightness in your image.
Adobe Lightroom is a powerful tool to use
in editing, as it is very intuitive and offers HIGHLIGHTS
automation to apply adjustments to a whole This will control only the brighter areas of your image.
batch of images at the same time.
SHADOWS
This will control only the darker areas of your image.

CLARITY
This will control contrast in the middle tones of your
image. It has a tendency to increase textures, but be
mindful not to overdo it. Reducing clarity tends to
remove textures and make your image flatter.

SATURATION
This will control the amount of colour in your image.
London Flower School
The Generator
16-20 Wharfdale Road N1 9RY London
United Kingdom

tel.: +44 (0) 20 8181 4154

email: school@londonflowerschool.com
website: www.londonflowerschool.com