in the garage

set up a velvet backdrop in the garage and took a few photos under different light conditions procumbens juniper with collected lava rock shimpaku shimpaku again
another


root over rock procumbens procumbens juniper tanuki last one

Beautiful Trees Sam! Like many, I have enjoyed your work on IBC for a long time. Thanks for posting.
John

Nice work and the photos look good as well.
Jerry

Nice trees. I really like that shimpaku. Nice photographs as well.

thanks for the feedback everyone.

aloha, sam

I like them! Very nice trees!

Howzit Sam,

You have wonderful trees but the detail is lost in the shadows in the photographs. It looks like your light is shooting up from the bottom causing deep shadows in the trunk and branches. If I may suggest, if your using studio lights shoot your main light from your camera angle and put a small background light to help separate the tree from the background. That way you can show more detail in the tree. But from the photographs it looks like your using an existing light which is hard to do unless you have a really bright light. The next best thing to do is photograph your trees outdoors in the bright sun light. Use the same background but photograph the tree with the sun coming from your back. That will be your main light. I'm only suggesting this to "Kokua" you in taking better pictures. I like looking at your trees and by helping you take better pictures we can learn by looking at the details.

A Hui Hou,
-Tim

Hi Sam ,
Thank you for sharing your nice trees , regarding photography , I find this article, which is very helpful:
http://www.artofbonsai.org/tutorials/photoguide.php
Best :Mehrdad

thanks for the helpful suggestions folks. I appreciate all ideas. at some point I need to invest in some decent picture taking equipment. holding a sony point and shoot with one hand and a desk lamp in the other is not getting me the results I want. my first buy will be a tripod plus some decent stand alone lights.