I went out into our garden today on a mission. I was going to shoot into the light! Lens flare isn't really something I've gone after much, but it seems to currently be all the rage, so I thought I'd give it a try.
I didn't fall in love with any of my more flared shots, but I did get a few keepers. They might class more as contrejour than as flare shots. (Contrejour just is a fancy way of saying shooting towards the light.) And I'm determined to keep at it. I want to try it with a few different lenses, at different times of day; these were shot with my 50mm lens around 4:30 pm, which is still a pretty bright time of day here but at least the sun is low enough in the sky that it's easy to point your camera in its general direction.
Anyway, if you're interested in flare, here are a couple of great flare tutorials:
http://digital-photography-school.com/5-tips-for-achieving-artistic-lens-flare-how-to
http://thepioneerwoman.com/photography/2009/06/sun-flare-for-beginners/
Here and here are tutorials that show how to create that cool 'sun star' effect. Haven't tried it out myself, yet.
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In the first picture, the background is overwhelming what I think is the focus of interest - the leaf. In the second picture, I am drawn to the leaf and the flare is subtle enough to just make me believe that I should squint...
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Heh...we did have quite similar shots on this day. I love the curly vines and yes the 50mm is quite fun to use. :)
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