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The beauty of living in the South is that I get to enjoy my garden almost year round. While gardens in the Northeast look a bit sad in the winter. Gardens in the South provide color throughout the year. This is especially true in several local gardens in Charleston South Carolina. There are several former plantations in the area that filled with color from one season to the next.

Magnolia Plantation and Gardens is probably the most visited and is definitely my favorite. Magnolia Plantation dates back to 1670′s with areas of the gardens left in its original state. This of course has granted me a wonderful opportunity to capture beautiful 300 year old English gardens. This along with the historic background makes for a garden photographers dream setting.

There are always challenges for any photographer when taking pictures. Garden photography has its own set of unique challenges. First and foremost for me is lighting and the challenges it presents.

Bright sunny days are great for going to the beach, but not for taking pictures. The best natural lighting you can have is when the sky is overcast. The problem with having bright sunshine is that you get a reflection of the leaves. This causes an issue with you having too much contrast in your raw pictures.

Try and avoid midday sun if possible. You can try and create an area of shade with a blanket or bed cloth. There is one inexpensive method that I like to use and that’s cardboard. If you are able to get the right lighting the next issue is proper angle.

Getting the right angle on the subject you are focusing on is extremely important. You want to look at it from different positions and angles. This way you can eliminate any objects you don’t want in the shot. This can be a pole in the ground or a group of wires that’s used to brace a nearby tree. It could even be a hose or broken branch. Get close to the ground and look at it from that angle. Take a few shots with your camera shooting upright. Moving in closer after each shot and as close as an inch or two.

Use of a tripod can be very useful in low lighting situations that you just created. As well as close up shots. This will allow you to get a steady shot as well. I like to think I have a steady hand, but some shots are a little blurry at times.

Every season brings new life to gardens. Birds and bees in the Spring. Winter rye grass in the Fall. Sunflowers in the Summer. So, the last point that I can share is most important. Explore your surroundings and enjoy what nature has to offer. You’ll never find a subject in the garden that you have to ask to smile or hear complaints from.

I’ve been a Charleston photographer for over 10 years and each and every time I explore the area gardens with my camera at my side. I find something that I didn’t realize was there before. Makes each trip a very unique and rewarding experience.

It has been said numerous times that a picture is worth a thousand words and nowhere else is this truer than with editorial photography. Newspapers and magazines that publish photographs that accompany articles are using this type of photography to add visualization to their printed stories. The use of pictures to accompany articles may not pay as much as commercial or corporate photography but is a great way to achieve name recognition.

With most pictures appearing in magazines or in newspapers credit is given to the photographer, which will help them build their portfolio. In newspapers, photographers vie for awards for their work, and winning prizes as well as having their name appear with their work can give them a portfolio to use to gain photographic work in other more lucrative industries.

Some newspapers and magazines, and now internet sites may use the same photographer to create editorial photography as well as advertising or product images and photographers that can do both can build their portfolio even quicker. However, pictures used for advertising or marketing purposes usually do not have any accompanying credit and the photographer will need to have some sort of documentation that they did, in fact, take the picture.

Other aspects of editorial photography can include pictures of disasters such as car accidents or the aftermath of violent storms. Essentially these are the images that accompany articles in the editorial side of the news business. Videographers working for television news bureaus are also involved in editorial photography and only they use video equipment and are often referred to as video journalists as their pictures tell a story.

Editorial photography refers to the pictures in a magazine that aren’t ads. The photographs that go along with the articles – even the cover of the magazine. Some photographers shoot only editorial type work, others shoot both editorial and commercial. For many professionals, despite the typically lower pay, editorial photography offers them a chance to tell a story they believe to be important to a wider audience. By taking pictures that present facts in an enticing manner they can often convince newspapers and magazines to use their pictures, along with additional editorial content to tell a story that may otherwise be overlooked. They can also be used to help people in need. For example, photographs taken in the aftermath of recent tornadoes have been used to show the devastation and to raise awareness for help needed in those communities. These pictures play a role in public donations for those hit hardest by the storms.