It's a little different for me vs. the hundreds of other volunteers. I sent the Executive Director a letter in 2008 suggesting the hours at the Wildflower Center (WFC) were the worst for fine art nature photography (9-5). I suggested they grant me 24/7 access to the center and I would give them rights to use all the photographs I take there. They liked the idea and I've been going there on average 2x per week since 2008. I usually arrive before sunrise and shoot for 1-2 hours until the wind picks up or it becomes too sunny. I prefer calm, cloudy days for what I do. I shoot images at the WFC for a few hours then come home and post process them for an hour or two. The WFC uses my images for wall art, web, email, publications and banners around the center. They first used my images to hang in the courtyard restrooms so I usually tell people I got my start with restroom art.
Since 2008. It's a beautiful place and very quiet and peaceful when I'm there. There are hundreds of volunteers that do hard labor to create a wonderful nature experience. I get to take advantage of that so it is a very symbiotic relationship. I've taken over 12,000 pictures at the WFC.
Hummm. There are many but if I had to choose one I would say sitting on my stool in the middle of the arboretum looking up at my favorite oak tree with the sun rising behind it. Quiet, peaceful, colorful, inspiring.
I look for anything that is interesting and I try to capture an image that I would want to look at over and over. It might be a tree or an insect or a wildflower, grass, reptile, mammal or interesting shapes or colors while walking around. I might have a general area of the WFC I plan to visit on a particular morning or I just get out of the car and start walking around. I've never gone home without taking some interesting images....even in December and January. In the end, I like to take pictures where you look at it and just go, "wow".
Nikon D800 and D850. My favorite lens is the 200mm macro. I also carry a wide angle, 24-70mm and a 70-210mm. I use a Uni-loc tripod, cable release and I carry a knee pad. I also have small gentle clamps to hold wildflower stems so the wind won't move them. I do post processing with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and I do focus stacking using Zerene Stacker. So, for the type of photography I prefer to do I'm on a tripod 95% of the time and shooting with a cable release, kneeling on a knee pad. Pretty simple.
I enjoy looking closely at nature so I'm drawn to macro photography. I usually shoot in the range 1:1 to 1:4. So macro and close up. I like out of focus backgrounds and tack sharp subjects. That is why I like calm mornings so I can get sharp images and overcast so I get good color saturation and less super high contrast. I don't shoot people, birds or nudes. Lately, I'm taking more wildflower focus stacks. Shooting at wider apertures and changing the focus plane taking multiple shots of the subject and then combining them in post processing. This technique produces nice soft backgrounds (bokeh) and tack sharp subjects. You control what you want in focus and what you don't. It helps to eliminate distracting backgrounds so you can highlight the subject better.
When you take a portrait image of a person you like to put them in the best light and try to make them look a little better than they normally do ;). I do the same thing with wildflowers. I try to make them look the best they can. No insect damage, in great light with no distractions in the background. I often try to line them up so there is a similar bloom in the background WAY out of focus behind the bloom I'm focusing on. This puts a similar blurred color behind the bloom making for a more interesting but non-distracting background. You can see that style in many of the images I have taken. Sometimes I bring interesting botanical subjects home and shoot them in a white box at 5x or 10x. Then you really get to see botanical structures you can't see with your naked eyes. It's a whole other world when you get really close.
I would say I really don't have one favorite but my favorite ones are those where I remember the time and place when I took the picture and the picture itself takes me back to that time. I also like the pictures I've taken where the view is so close you see things that you normally wouldn't see with the naked eye or images that tell a story.
I don't really know. I guess you would call them on the phone and ask how you could get involved. I interact in person with the staff very infrequently as I'm usually leaving when they are arriving. We wave a lot.
*Volunteer opportunities can be found here: https://www.wildflower.org/volunteer/
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