Behind the scenes

I thought this evening I would post a "behind the scenes" picture which might prove helpful to some of you. In the last couple of days I posted some flower pictures, they were both taken on sunny days which can create its own difficulties in holding detail in the flower, particularly the white orchid. The umbrella you can see is a shoot through umbrella normally used in the studio in front of a flash. But it does a great job of creating nice even light for the flower portrait also!! Cost about €20 and it folds up and is easy to carry. Although the umbrella is not actually set up for the picture you can see the white orchid I posted yesterday in the picture. The grey triangular shaped thingy is a grey card which is used to set white balance, that way you can get accurate colours of the flower,and can also be used to set the exposure. if you photograph the scene with the grey card in it , when you open the picture in photoshop or lightroom simply clicking on the grey with the eyedropper will set the correct white balance.