I was recently invited to visit Kew Gardens in south west London, taking the opportunity to try out some macro medium format shots with my Hasselblad camera. Come join me for some real colour explosion and plenty of diversity!
I’ve been focusing on black & white photography for the past few months as I self develop at home and learn the finer details of printing in a darkroom, so I was glad for a break to catchup on some colour photography again. Happily accepting an invitation to go for a long walk around Kew Gardens, I visited this world famous botanical garden a few weeks ago with a couple of photography friends.
A bit more about Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens is one of the largest and most important botanical gardens in the world, housing over 50,000 different plant species. Located in south west London (close to Richmond), it was founded in 1840, however was used as a royal garden all the way back in the 17th century. Apparently it has strong connections to Captain Cook’s journeys around the world (presumably bringing back important plant specimens). It is located on a 300 acre plot of land with the River Thames on one side. It is home to a large number of interesting buildings and installations including a 10 storey pagoda and an 18-metre off the group tree-top walkway. It also has a number of different greenhouse type buildings with more variety of plants and flowers you’re likely to ever see anywhere. Luckily for us it was a bright day and we were able to enjoy some bright shots in colour. I have been to Kew before, but of course it is so different depending on which season you visit.
A bit more about the photography setup
I decided for my Hasselblad medium format camera, together with an 80mm and 150mm lens. In addition to this setup were a couple of Hasselblad extension tubes. These tubes fit between the camera body and the lens and allow for much closer focusing, essentially shooting macro photography. I rarely use them because they are so hard to finely focus with, but they can bring out some interesting results in flora macro photography. All my shots were handheld so it was very challenging to get the right level of focus, especially dealing with subtle plant movements in wind. I shot two rolls of 120 Kodak Portra 400.
I’ve decided for this post to just show the photographs as opposed to individual commentary, because there is only so much one can say about a plant and how colourful it is!
Overall observations
I’m actually really happy with the shots I got back, despite finding some of the close focusing extremely challenging. I had also forgotten how clear and sharp medium format is on my Hasselblad. I think that combined with metering the film at ISO 320 (so giving it a bit of an extra amount of light for this ISO 400 film) gave some of these shots a real ‘pop’ to them.
It goes without saying that Kew Gardens is worth a visit, however you will encounter a ridiculous amount of cameras everywhere, and it is very tempting to take the same shot everyone else is taking (e.g. boring). I was happy to be able to experiment with the extension rings and get a different perspective. In fact with this type of macro photography you could easily take a few rolls of film without moving more than one step from your current location. That being said, you’d probably lose both your eyesight and your mind (living in a macro photography world is quite an experience).
I hope you enjoyed these shots as much as I did taking them and it is nice to see a bit of colour back on the blog!
See you next time!
Neil
