The perks of working behind the scenes at the EMC Go Live Event is that I get a taste of the event before it actually happens. And as a result of that, I have already started following the podcasts of Anahit Hokobyan with some of the guests of the event and they are fabulous...and truly inspiring. It so happens that for the past year I have been blogging for EMC quite a lot, and a few times for Thursd as well and I loved the experience.
The Power of Integrating Visuals Into Your Floral Stories
Time seems to have crumbled in the past months, though, I guess for everybody, so I didn’t make time anymore to blog for Thursd. And then I listened to the
podcast with Arnold Wittkamp and I felt a little bit bad about not making time to keep blogging every now and then for Thursd. After all, it’s an exercise of putting words together to help people understand the story behind the flowers, as Arnold talked about how important it is for floral designers to have a voice of their own.
Thursd Can Be Your Stage
To put it in his own words, “I hope that many many florists see Thursd as a kind of stage for themselves. If you do well as a floral designer, there are many many growers who would like to support you with your flowers. We can offer a connection to those growers. So, if you are a floral designer, and you have a story to tell, please send it to Thursd. Not so many words, 300-500 words, but lots and lots of pictures.”
Bring The Flowers Justice
Now that part, “lots and lots of pictures” is an issue for a lot of florists, including me. Blogging means also taking photos and that can involve a whole setup on its own. And when we are tired after long hours of work, the designing is done and everything looks at its best - except for us. And, oftentimes, if we’re doing weddings, we send the flowers away and hope to get some nice images from the photographers. Then you get them and they don't really bring justice to your flowers, right?
In the past year, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with a great professional photographer who not only helped me with my images for all sorts of more official publications, Thursd included, but also guided me and coached me into improving my photographic material for every day social media and even blogs, from now on. And recently we have collaborated again to work on his presentation as a guest speaker for the upcoming EMC Go Live event: Alex Mateiu.
Alex Mateiu at EMC Go Live
The fun part of this? We worked as a team. I gave him 6 different arrangements, each having a couple of challenges for him, things we as florists oftentimes have problems photographing. And the ultimate challenge for all of them is that he had to take pictures with the “cheapest and most on-hand” gear: one light source and a regular camera phone, not even in PRO mode.
Colors Can Be a Tricky One
How do you capture transparency and how do you take pictures of vertical arrangements? How do we approach glass and reflexive surfaces? What happens when there is a lot of texture involved or when yellow flowers almost never turn the real yellow that you see in reality? Because color seems to be a tricky one all the time. Pointers from somebody who has a different perspective, the photographic one, can really help improve the final picture and the only thing you need to invest in is not so much a lot of equipment, but first and foremost: knowledge.
In Alex’s EMC Go Live presentation he will actually share his phone screen as he is taking the pictures. And step-by-step he will be explaining how being a conscious creative not only helps your floral design process but also helps in photography. Learning a few basic rules and being able to see the process through his eyes really helps a lot.
Tell Your Floral Stories on Thursd
And Arnold is right, if you have lots of nice pictures and a story to tell, it is truly easy to put out a blog. In this case, the story is about how integrating photography in your work can help improve your digital and virtual appearances online, which, truth be told, is rather essential nowadays. And who knows, you might even blog for Thursd one day.
