A Summer Day

at the Atlanta Botanical Garden

By Will Farrington

July 2^nd, 2018

Fauna

I don't often think of wildlife when it comes to botanical gardens, but I've since learned that it's a sign of good bio-diversity. The Atlanta Botanical Garden is no exception — featuring turtles, frogs, finches, squirrels, and a number of insects. Some of these critters were a bit trickier to shoot than others, particularly because I spent most of the day with my XF 80mm f/2.8 (120mm equiv.) macro lens affixed to my primary camera body and couldn't be fussed swapping lenses constantly (for something like my 150-600mm equiv. lens).

Still, I managed to capture a few denizens of the garden.

I enjoy the depth of field I was able to achieve here. This was shot wide open, though I think I would have been happier with a slightly less shallow depth of field. 80mm, 1/11000 sec at f/2.8, ISO 400

Flora

I find a great deal of joy in the raw and vibrant colors found throughout the flowers decorating the garden.

Imaginary worlds

Atlanta Botanical Garden has a few consistent exhibits year-to-year, such as "Imaginary Worlds" in the summer months, which features a number of plant sculptures. These sculptures require months of work, and cannot be kept outside during the colder months, requiring disassembly and transfer into greenhouses.

Shooting these proved tricky as more visitors to the garden began showing up and the sun started burning away the cloud cover from earlier in the morning.

My friend, Melissa, joined me for the day to do some urban sketching. As I was fiddling with some camera settings, I snuck in a shot of her looking out towards the bridge below. 35mm, 1/900 sec at f/2.8, ISO 400

Visitors

The garden was surprisingly busy for a hot and humid afternoon in June. My hope, especially getting there close to opening hours, was to avoid crowds. While that didn't go according to plan, I embraced the opportunity to take a few photos of visitors around the park.

future ideas

The garden operates under fairly standard hours most days, making shooting in ideal lightning circumstances a bit of luck. While the day started out a bit cloudy, the sun eventually managed to come out at about noon, providing a bit more light than I'd like. I tried a few shots with my 16mm f/1.4 (24mm equiv.) lens using a neutral density filter, but the only one I brought with me was a 3-stop filter, which was not enough to overpower the intense light from the sun for some longer exposure shots of water features in the garden.

Thankfully, the park does operate through golden hour on Thursday nights. I expect I'll go back, likely after my upcoming trip to Montana, to try and capture more of the garden in more ideal lighting.

Footnotes

Everything was shot with my X-H1 or X-T2, both of which feature the same 24 megapixel APS-C sensor. 1.5x for 35mm equiv.

Button Label

FootNotes

Everything was shot with my X-H1 or X-T2, both of which feature the same 24 megapixel APS-C sensor. 1.5x for 35mm equiv.