THE GARDENING WORLD. 
739 
November 28, 1908. 
Photography for Garden Lrovers. 
By the Rev. F. C. Lambert, M.A., F.R.P.S. 
(Continued from -page 686.) 
VIII.— WORK IN THE CONSERVATORY. 
I may say at once that I consider this 
ranch of our work a somewhat difficult 
ne for the reason that in the glass house 
,-e are, as a rule, bewildered by such a 
wealth of nature's extravagance that it 
,f t en is a case of embarras de richesses. 
f then we grasp this fact at the outset, 
hus being forearmed and forewarned, we 
can aim at the simplest arrangement of 
subject that the case permits. 
The illustrations in this chapter are 
all from negatives exposed in the glass 
houses of the Botanical Garden in 
Regent's Park, where naturally the speci¬ 
mens are packed fairly close together 
with a view to making the best use of the 
space available. One has in such a case 
to do the best possible with things just as 
they are — for there is no possibility of 
moving any of the specimens. There¬ 
fore, for these two reasons this special 
case presents difficulties which can be 
overcome to some extent in a private 
greenhouse where one can either move or 
cover up specimens which are not wanted 
in the picture. 
Now in conservatory or greenhouse 
work we may require a “general view.’ 
In such a case the work is fairly simple 
if we bear in mind that very probably 
our “general view” will include some of 
the bars or frame work of the building 
and show us sky beyond. Therefore, the 
use of a well backed plate becomes im¬ 
perative, otherwise the picture is ex¬ 
tremely likely to be spoiled by halation. 
Another practical little warning may be 
given, viz., be on your guard against the 
slippery- nature of the floor, or your tri¬ 
pod may come down with a rush and 
regrets come too late. The most comfort¬ 
able and safe thing to use in such a 
case is a piece of cocoa-nut-fibre matting 
on the floor. 
Another warning may be given, viz., 
do not make the common mistake of 
having the camera too high above ground 
level, or your picture will suggest that 
the floor is not level, but is running up¬ 
hill in a most unnatural manner. About 
3! or 4 feet will, as a general rule, be 
high enough. 
Very often in these general views we 
have to include some object within — say’, 
five or six feet from the lens while other 
parts may be 20 or 30 feet away. This 
means a small stop will be required. 
But do not use a smaller stop than is 
really’ necessary 7 . A hint on focussing in 
such a case may be useful. 
Begin with the largest stop available 
and focus first for some object about one 
third the distance between the nearest 
point and most distant point. Suppose 
the nearest object is 5 feet and most dis¬ 
tant, 20 feet. Thus our picture takes m 
15 feet of picture depth. Divide this by 
3 and get 5 feet, and this added to the 
5 feet between leqs and nearest object 
tells us to focus for 7 something about 10 
feet from the lens. Now compare the 
fuzziness of the nearest and most distant 
parts and readjust the focus so as to get 
the nearest and most distant parts about 
equally defined. Now put in the next 
smaller stop and readjust again, then 
the next smaller and so on, until the 
nearest and most distant parts are about 
equally sharply defined, but giving the 
nearest parts, if anything, the sharper 
definition. 
I give no illustration of this kind of 
work because there is no difficulty and 
such pictures are usually uninteresting. 
Suppose now’ we W’ant to concentrate 
our attention upon some one specimen. 
We must consider two things. First, 
lighting; second, background. We must 
try to find which point of view gives us 
the best variety of light and shade ; this 
will often be found to be such that the 
light falls on the object chiefly from our 
right or left, that is, not from behind or 
in front of us. 
Next as the spectator’s attention is 
desired for the selected specimen we must 
try to find which point of view gives us 
a "background least likely to compete 
with the specimen. For instance, in 
Fig. 1 we have a large foliage plant of 
the Aspidistra kind surrounded by ferns. 
The view point has been chosen as that 
which seemed to give the best light and 
shade contrasts. Now in order to pre¬ 
vent the spectator's attention being dis¬ 
tracted by the countless fronds in the 
background a large stop was used so 
that the background is deliberately put 
slightly’ out of focus, so that our atten¬ 
tion may be concentrated on the speci¬ 
men under consideration. The camera, 
in this case, was brought down to about 
3 feet from the ground. Had this not 
been done we should have got a bird's- 
eye kind of view, which is anything but 
pleasant, though not by any means un¬ 
common in photographs of such cases. 
The second illustration is chosen to 
illustrate another practical difficulty 7 . In 
this case we have a large vase some five 
or six feet in diameter, perhaps, and full 
of small flowering plants, of the Spiraea 
kind. Of course, a somewhat low point 
of view is necessary in this case. And 
as the subject is already a very crowded 
one in the sense that we have a large 
number of small flowers crowded up to- 
Fig. 2. Astilbes (Spiraea). 
