Photographing a flower in the style of Mapplethorpe

The photography set-up with both flowers in frame.

Location and tools
The location for my shoot was my living room making most of the light pouring through the window. Direct sunlight is too harsh for this work so I set up the ‘studio’ away from window. I used my Nikon D700 fitted with a 105mm macro lens and the combination mounted on a Manfrotto 055CXPRO3 tripod.

For the background of many of the shots I used my black fleece draped over the back of a chair. For other shots, I relocated a few feet and used the black slate slabs of the fireplace.

Something as simple as a black fleece can make the perfect background.

Focusing was done manually, which is always best for macro work when the lens can search for focus, and aperture-priority AE, engaging the exposure compensation facility to fine-tune the result. With a white lily against a black backdrop the risk of poor exposures was quite high, but the meter handled matters well and any adjustments were minor.  I also used a remote release to fire the shutter – the camera’s mirror lock-up was also used to minimize any risk of camera shake.



In the end my image was very different from Mapplethorpe’s but I liked the result anyway. I hope you do.

The shoot
 I usually start with ‘wide’ shots, before moving in for the close-ups and then taking a  final step back. For this image I set the lens to its smallest aperture (f/36) for maximum depth-of-field which gave a shutter speed of 2secs. All the pictures here were done at ISO200.
I moved my subjects closer to the camera for my next shot. This time, I opened the lens right up to its maximum aperture to throw the closer flower out of focus. Exposure settings of /1200sec at f/3.2.
Next, I got in even closer. The Nikon 105mm macro lens allows 1:1 or lifesize magnification so I could make more of the flower’s stamen.

Closer still, I excluded the black backdrop completely. Depth-of-field when you’re this close to the subject is minimal even at a small aperture, as this shot at f/36 shows (bottom right).
A few DSLRs have multiple exposure features and the D700 is one of them.  I set the camera to give two exposures on the same frame, and took one shot sharp and one totally defocused. Both shots at 1/100sec at f/4.
Even though I'd done several shots, I hadn’t got close to the Mapplethorpe lily image I was trying to parody. So I tried placing the lily on the black slate fireplace. I used a weight (a small picture frame) to hold the flower in place and I rested my mobile phone across the top to spread the petal. The slim phone managed to cast a shadow, so I used some sticky tape out of shot instead and finally, that gave me the look I wanted. Exposed at 1/3secs at f/3.

The second set-up.

Final image.