Today Verity and Saffy from The Bath Flower School are sharing their top tips for sustainable floristry. As a flower school that prioritizes sustainability, The Bath Flower School offers solutions and tools for florists to practice their craft in a way that is kind to the earth. Here are their top tips for practicing sustainable floristry!
Choose flowers and foliage that are in season, have been grown locally or that you have foraged (with permission) to ensure you are creating something that has had the least travel involved in it. Use flowers that are at their peak and at their best and choose according to this rather than creating a design in your head and then seeking out the flowers. Always be season and flower led and let this dictate your design.
It’s all about the vessels! When you choose not to use flower foam, the vessels you choose to hold water are an integral part of your design. “No water no life!” You need to have vessels big enough to hold an amount of water that will keep your stems hydrated for the length of time that they need to look good. The vessel is part of your design. If you are making something to sit on a table think about the scale, shape, colour and relevance of the container that is holding the water and the flowers. The bowl, vase or trough you use is integral to the finished look and needs to tie in with your overall design.
Think about the longevity and purpose of your design. Can it be moved at an event to be re purposed to maximise its impact and to minimise the customers spend and waste. Can your designs be gifted after the event or recycled to a charity or worthy cause. Make designs that contain no single use plastics and only materials that will biodegrade easily or can be used again and again.
Create a sustainable installation with The Bath Flower School this October at our floral career retreat in Lisbon, Creating a Circular Floral Design Business. Learn more and book your spot here!
Today let’s learn how to photograph flowers with Éva Németh. I am so excited to have Éva contributing a guest post today! Éva is a photographer from Oxfordshire, UK, who uses quiet observation to capture flowers and gardens on camera.
She photographs some of the most well known gardens in the UK as well as some of your favorite flower arranging books.
Éva’s work has been featured in House & Garden UK, AD, Gardens Illustrated, Country Living UK, and many more!
Read below for Éva’s top tips for photographing flowers for your next floral photoshoot.
Always photograph in natural light and away from direct sunlight
Always take photographs in natural light. That said, not all natural light is ideal for taking pictures. Too much sunshine can easily kill your flower photography by making the true colours of flowers appear too harsh and vivid, but there are many ways to tone it down. Try to block out the light by simply standing in a way that you cast a shadow on your flower.
Considered background
Make sure your background complements your flowers and there’s no distraction. When we photograph something, we often concentrate so much on our subject that we forget to notice what other elements make up the overall composition. It’s only when we look at the photo that we realise that we should have moved the bin out of the way, or removed the bright yellow flower from the background because it’s not harmonising with the colour of the one we’re trying to capture.
Use shallow depth of field to capture the flowersWhen taking your flower photos with a DSLR or mirrorless or a smartphone that allows you to choose your own f stop, make sure you choose an f stop that is somewhere between f1.8 and f2.8 Using large aperture (small f stop) allows you to make your flower stand out while the rest of the image is out of focus.
Éva will be teaching you how to get the most out of your camera or phone to capture your designs in a way that reflects your brand and the clients you wish to attract to your work at our floral career retreat in October 2024: Creating a Circular Floral Design Business where we will be creating a floral photoshoot. Get more details on the workshop and event here.
All photos by Éva Németh.
Join a flower workshop or floral retreat this year! See the full schedule below.
July 27th: Lisbon Summer Workshop (in person in Lisbon)
August 17th, 24, 31: The Floral Pricing Sessions (Live on Zoom with recordings available)
October 27th-November 2nd: Creating a Circular Floral Design Business (in person in Lisbon, Portugal)
Floral Foundations (online streaming)
The Career Bundle (online streaming)
See more of our online streaming floral design classes here and more about our floral retreats here.
