The perfect photos are about more than just what’s in the foreground. You need a gorgeous backdrop to tie the image together and make it look amazing.
Regardless of whether you’re taking photos for fun or need to capture lots of images for a fashion blog, your garden can be the ideal backdrop for everything. It’ll add more greenery and pops of color to every image – and there are plenty of things to utilize in your backyard for amazing photography.
Staying on that trail of thought, let’s see some pro tips to help you turn your garden into the perfect photography background!
Ensure everything is trimmed neatly
Can you imagine the embarrassment of taking a photo and posting it to your blog, only to realize your overgrown garden is in the background? You thought an outdoor image would look lovely, but all your followers are pointing out the gnarly bushes and extra-long lawn. This is the perfect example of a terrible photo backdrop; it takes attention away from the main image, so what’s the point?
Before you take any photos of your garden, ensure you trim and maintain everything. Start by getting out the lawn mower and cutting the grass. Keep it at around 1-1.5 inches in length; most mowers will tell you what setting to use to achieve this. A shorter lawn looks far tidier and immediately makes your garden look better.
Then, go around all the plants and trees and start pruning/trimming. You may need to cut back some pushes and square off hedges, but that’s okay. Your goal is to trim everything so it looks neat and tidy. There will also be a lot of de-weeding going on – you don’t want nasty weeds interrupting your photos and turning your backdrop from a garden oasis to a miniature forest.
Add pops of natural color
Why should you even consider using your garden as a photo background? You could keep taking all of your photos inside or using plain backdrops, but a garden provides something so fantastic: natural colors!
Beautiful gardens are awash with greens, reds, yellows, purples, pinks, blues, and so many other gorgeous hues. Your job is to add all of these colors to your garden! It’s very easy to do – again, you can start with your lawn. Regular mowing, watering, and fertilizing will ensure it stays as green as possible, offering a stunning carpet to show off in the background of your photos.
From here, adopt the same watering and maintenance pattern with other plants, bushes, and trees to bring out their natural greenness. Then, it’s a simple case of planting a range of flowers throughout your garden for additional color bursts. Heck, you could even plant fruit or vegetables for more color combos.
The end result is a garden that looks as vibrant as ever. The little pops of color here and there look amazing in your photos – and you can even take pictures closer to specific plants/flowers to get them in the background. For example, the backdrop of some colorful flowers goes perfectly when you’re taking close-up pictures of jewelry or fashion accessories.
Create a statement wall
What is a statement wall? It’s an area of your garden designed to stand out but also to become the perfect setting for photos. You can create one on the back of your house, against a fence, or anywhere else in your garden. One of the most popular design options is to use a wooden lattice decoration and place this against a plain wall or fence. You’ll find these at any good gardening store or home decor shop, and they come in all sorts of varieties.
They add style to plain walls, though you can also place lovely fairy lights on them or get vines/flowers to grow around them. This creates the perfect selfie area – or an ideal place to pose for full-body outfit photos.
Make sure your garden is always clean
It goes without saying that you can’t take photos in a messy garden. Trimming and maintaining the plants/flowers/lawn will obviously help you keep things neat, but you also need to look at any garden clutter.
So, before taking any photos, make sure you scour the garden for any junk or clutter. Annoyingly, you might get litter that’s blown in from other gardens, so you need to take care of that. It shouldn’t be hard; just make sure the whole garden backdrop is clean before you shoot.
Install beautiful lighting for evening photos
Gardens are excellent when you want to take photos in the evening. For one, they let you take advantage of the golden hour – this is when the sun just starts setting and creates a stunning golden hue. You then have the sunset itself to cast a wonderful background for your photos, plus some amazing evening vibes images.
Having said that, poor lighting can ruin your outdoor photos and make them look blurry or low-quality. Counter this by installing lots of lighting options around your garden. Have some big statement lights like lanterns or tall lights when you need lots of lighting at night. Compliment these with much smaller and more subdued lighting choices – like fairy lights, fake candles, etc.
You end up with the perfect evening ambiance for some unique photos. It’s great because it means you can take pictures of things whenever you want, rather than needing to wait until it’s light.
Enhance the natural beauty with editing software
After following all of the previous tips, you’ve created the ideal garden for photogenic backdrops. All that’s left is to bring out the natural beauty with some great photo editing software. It’s something all bloggers or wannabe photographers need to invest in – you should pay particular attention to editing options that brighten or deepen colors. This ensures that every shot looks vibrant and delivers the perfect background for your photos.
You can, obviously, still take photos inside when you need to. However, having a nice garden gives you a chance to do something different!
Read more:
How To Turn Your Garden Into The Perfect Backdrop For Your Photos