Editor's note: The 2026 class of my Lightroom Classic Secrets course is open for enrollment now. Learn the tips, techniques and secrets used by the Lightroom masters. Click here for the details. Thanks for reading, Andrew.
Garden photography is fun. Over the last 18 months I’ve visited many beautiful gardens and made lots of flower and garden photos. But what elevates the best garden photos above the others? Like flower photography, the answer is light and composition.
The best light for photographing gardens is soft light. Overcast days are perfect. On partially cloud days you can wait for clouds to cover the sun. If you’re lucky enough to have access in the evening, then the golden hour produces beautiful light. But most public gardens are closed at that time, so many photographers don’t have that option.
Light is easy. But composition for garden photography is harder. It helps to ask yourself these questions: Is your composition interesting? Is there a way to make it more exciting or dramatic? The answers guide your way forward.
Another challenge is finding a way to turn a complex garden scene into a structured photo. The composition tips and secrets in this article will help you do that.
Understanding color
Gardens are colorful places, and that makes color an important element of composition. Let’s start with the basics. We can understand color better by looking at a color wheel (see below), a tool used by artists, designers and photographers to understand the relationships between different colors.
Colors on opposite sides of the wheel, like red and green, are called complementary colors. A photo with complementary colors, like a red flower against a green background, is said to have high color contrast. A combination like yellow and green has less color contrast.
What does this mean for photographers? A lot depends on the garden you’re photographing. Good garden designers understand color and think about the color palettes of their gardens the same way an artist thinks about which colors to use in their paintings. They plant flowers with similar colors so that the garden has a harmonious color palette. In a garden like this you don’t have to worry about color, as the designer has done that for you. In other cases, the color may be more chaotic, and you might like to look for ways of simplifying the composition. This can be as simple as framing. If you have a scene with both red and blue flowers in it, you can frame it in a way that lets either the red flowers or the blue flowers dominate, rather than fight each other.
Sometimes the color palette is set for you by the season. Think about the ways you can use the season’s natural colors in your photos. Spring is full of fresh green colors, plus the pinks of magnolias and the reds and yellow of colorful flowers like daffodils and tulips. In the photo below, the tulips have a harmonious color palette, complemented by the fresh green colors of spring in the foliage in the background.
Autumn has browns, yellows and reds. The warm autumnal colors in the photo below set the color palette.
Limited color palette
Sometimes you’ll come across gardens, or part of a garden, where the color is chaotic. With scenes like this think about ways you can simplify the composition through a limited color palette. How can you frame the photo to include as few colors as possible? Using a standard or telephoto lens, with its narrower point of view, makes this easier.
Other times, the work has been done for you and there isn’t much color for you to work with in the first place. This can happen when there aren’t many flowers in bud, or the flowers in the scene have similar colors, or there’s a lot of natural material like stone or wood. When this happens you can make the limited range of colors a feature in your composition.
In the photo below I deliberately limited the color palette by framing the photo to include mostly green. Red and yellow flowers add subtle pops of color.
Here the composition uses a limited color palette and the contrast between the pink flowers and the greenery. The yellow flowers at the bottom of the frame add subtle pops of color. The gray fence is a neutral background.
Layered compositions with wide-angle lenses
When you’re making a photo with a wide-angle lens where most or all of the scene is in sharp focus then it’s helpful to mentally divide the scene into three zones: a foreground, middle-ground and background. It’s tempting to think of these zones as occupying a third of the frame each, but this is a restrictive way of thinking. If you have an interesting sky it might take up half the frame. But if the sky is boring then you’ll either crop it out or restrict it to a small sliver at the top.
Try and place something interesting in each zone. In the foreground, for example, you might have flowers or grass, then something of interest in the middle ground and the background. A path or stream that winds its way from the foreground through to the background can help visually connect the three zones.
A common mistake with wide-angle lenses is to include too much in the frame, leading to messy and unstructured compositions with no obvious focal point. To counter this, decide what the focal point of your photo is going to be. It could be an architectural feature, a dominant shrub or tree, a group of colorful flowers or something else. It might even have more than one focal point. Be selective. Think about what you want to include in the frame, and what to leave out. Simplify the composition as much as you can. It makes your photos stronger.
The photo below, made with a 23mm (APS-C) lens, has a distinct foreground, middle-ground and background.
The flowers are an important part of the composition because they add color and interest to the foreground. They also create interest through contrast, that is the contrast between the flowers and the bare branches and autumnal colors in the background (I made the photo in early November).
The red lines in the photo below mark the edges between the foreground, middle-ground and background. These definitions are subjective, but it’s helpful to think about them when composing your photos.
Diagonals
Another technique is to include diagonal lines in your photos. Diagonals pull the viewer’s eye through the photo and help make the composition more dynamic and interesting. Using diagonals tests your observational skills. You need to first see the lines in the scene, then think about ways to use them in your composition. It’s a skill that takes time to acquire, so don’t be discouraged if you struggle to see and use diagonals at first.
The photo below uses strong diagonals in the composition (see the lines in the second version). The diagonals make the photo more interesting by giving the viewer’s eye something to follow.
Layers of interest
There are many interesting things about the composition of the previous photo, from the juxtaposition of buildings with planting, to the pops of color provided by the flowers, and the contrast between the colorful flowers and autumnal trees in the background.
These elements add layers of interest to the composition. You’ll see this idea in many of my garden photos, and it’s something you should think about with yours as it adds interest and depth to the composition.
Symmetry and broken symmetry
Gardens are designed. They have features that give them structure. They can be organic, like hedges and rows of trees, or man-made, like paths, patios, pergolas and other structures. Along with structure comes symmetry, which is a useful tool for showing a garden’s design.
Broken symmetry comes when the symmetry in the photo isn’t complete. In other words, parts of the photo, usually structural elements, are symmetrical, but the rest of it isn’t. This gives the photo an organic look and adds interest to the composition.
In the photo below, the path and the circular patio give the composition structure and symmetry centered on the statue. The planting and the trees break the symmetry, making the photo more interesting by showing contrast between the man-made and organic elements of the photo.
Vertical or horizontal?
Unless you’re using your camera in its square format mode one of the most important compositional choices you can make is whether to shoot with a photo in the landscape (horizontal) or portrait (vertical) format. You may have your own preferences. The portrait format often works well with flower photos, and the landscape format with garden photos. But there are always exceptions. It’s easy to get in the routine of using one or the other, and forget to turn your camera on its side to frame the scene differently.
I suggest that you make it part of your practice to use both formats. If you get in the habit of making both portrait and landscape versions of a scene you won’t regret not doing it afterwards. It’s not always possible – you may come across a scene that works beautifully in landscape format, for example, but not in portrait format. But doing it where you can gives you more choice when it comes to selecting your best photos afterwards.
It can also help you think about the composition of your photos. For example, take a look at the two photos below.
The difference in framing meant that the landscape version cropped the trees on the horizon. I find the vertical version more interesting to look at because the trees add an extra layer of interest. The photo has more depth. The vertical frame is also a good fit for the stone steps, which lead the eye upwards through the scene.
The point is that it’s easier to see and think about these things after the shoot when you have time to look at your photos more closely. They are easy to miss in the field, especially when you’re tired, thirsty or thinking about moving on to the next thing to photograph.
Simpler compositions with normal and telephoto lenses
As the focal length of your lens gets longer its field of view gets narrower, and that means you fit less in the frame. This is often a good thing as it encourages tighter compositions and forces you to think about the content of your photos. I like to start off using my 23mm (APS-C) wide-angle lens, then switch to my 35mm (APS-C) lens for tighter shots and details.
My 35mm lens is a normal lens (also known as a standard lens) on my APS-C camera, which means it has a field of view similar to that of a 50mm lens on a full-frame camera. Compared to my wide-angle, it lets me simplify the composition by cropping out more of the garden or sky. It’s a useful tool when faced with busy scenes. The effect gets more pronounced with longer focal lengths.
These photos show the difference that switching to a longer focal length can make. I made the first (below) with a 23mm (APS-C) lens. It gives a good sense of space and fits in plenty of detail, but it also includes a good deal of the sky and path.
I made the second photo (below) in the same garden with a 35mm (APS-C) lens. The tighter field of view meant I could photograph less of the scene and crop the sky and path. I set the aperture to f2 to blur the background, something I couldn’t do with the 23mm lens.
Selective focus or extensive depth of field?
You always have an aperture related choice. Do you stop down to get more of the scene in focus? Or do you open the aperture and focus on one element, throwing the rest of the scene out of focus? This technique is called selective focus and has several benefits. A wide aperture means you can work at a lower ISO, or a faster shutter speed or both. Blurring the background is a good way of simplifying the composition, or concealing something that would look ugly or distracting if it were sharper. A blurred background is often more suggestive, especially if it’s dark or contains shadows. Sharp scenes leave little to the imagination. Blurred backgrounds are evocative and suggestive. They hint at a background that contains secrets.
For all these reasons I’m a fan of using selective focus. Selective focus works best if you have a prime lens, as you can experiment with the widest aperture settings. There’s a big difference between apertures like f1.8 or f2.8 and the f4 or f5.6 apertures most zooms have as the widest option.
If in doubt, then work the subject and use both techniques. Stop down for good depth of field, then open up the aperture to see how it looks with background blur. Make some photos at f2.8 as well, in case your wide aperture photos have too little depth of field. It’s easier to judge the result at home on your computer than using your camera’s screen.
I made the photo below with a 35mm (APS-C) lens. It let me make a composition with a tight crop, excluding as much of the sky and path as possible. I stopped down to f9 for good depth of field.
Then I set the same lens to f2 and focused on the flowers in the foreground, letting the rest of the scene go out of focus. These photos show how you can make two very different photos of the same scene by changing the aperture and your point of view.
Hidden corners and details
One of my favorite parts of garden photography is seeking out hidden corners and details. You’ll need to bring your full powers of observation to bear on this. It’s a case of the more you look, the more you see. Garden designers are clever, and include many subtle design elements in their gardens. Not all gardens have them, but they add interest to your visit when they do.
Photos of details and hidden corners feel authentic and personal, because you’re making photos of things that resonate with you. They also add life and interest to the photos you make in the garden. Think back to the shot list earlier in the book, or the idea of shooting a magazine article. Including some photos of hidden corners and details adds variety to the selection of photos.
Presented together, like you would see in a book or magazine article, they convey the garden’s character and mood far more effectively than a single wide shot. You can also look for the human element in these photos, juxtaposing man-made objects with the surrounding plants and flowers.
A hidden corner can be something as simple as flowers climbing over a wall. Details like the bike in the second photo below add personal touches to gardens, and to your photos. If it looks beautiful to you, then make a photo. Standard and telephoto lenses are useful for photos like these as they enable you to crop the scene tightly.
Final thoughts
As you put these ideas into action, don’t forget to work the subject, try different things and make plenty of photos. Gardens change. The next time you visit the light will be different and so will the flowers. That’s part of the appeal, but it also means that when an opportunity is gone it’s gone forever. The garden you’re visiting isn’t going to look the same next time, so make sure you get the best photos you can now.
When I visit a garden for the first time I spend some time wandering around it without making photos. The idea is to get familiar with the layout and start to make some kind of sense of the visual chaos. I’m looking for the garden’s best features, the best places to make photos from and those hidden corners and details that I like so much.
Then I walk around with my 23mm wide-angle lens, making photos. When I’m done, I switch to my 35mm lens and walk around again, looking for those tighter shots and switching to a wide aperture when appropriate. This is my way of working, and hopefully it’s helpful for you. You’ll develop your own with practice and experience.
The Garden Photography Workshop
You can learn more about these ideas in my brand new ebook The Garden Photography Workshop.
Illustrated with over 150 inspiring photos, it shows you how to make beautiful photos of flowers and gardens like the ones in this article.
