Replicating what we see in reality with a photo is very difficult. Our eyes react much differently to the light, color, depth, and perspective of a real-world object than they do to a photo on a screen or a print. So I’ll focus more on how to take appealing photos. With a little setup and a few inexpensive materials, anyone can take nice photos of their trees at home, even if they have limited space.
The two primary issues that people run into tend to be lighting and background. Understanding photography concepts, exposure, composition, etc, and having a good-quality camera will help, but let’s focus on the first two.
Background: The usual mistake is taking photos of your trees in situ; most people don’t have a nice, clean background. They may be in a backyard with a busy or messy view, on a plinth with many other trees visible, against an ugly wall, and so forth.
You can create a simple studio background setup with a pack of 24x36” black (or whatever color you want) foamcore panels. Simply build half of a box: a bottom, side, and back, and attach the parts with ductape or whatever you have on hand. If you have a very large tree to photograph, you might want to build something a bit bigger, or consider a cloth background, but 24x36” foamcore is easy to order from Amazon, art supply stores, etc. You can buy photo backdrop kits and save yourself the DIY work as well.
If you insist on or need to take your photos in situ, consider building a simple backdrop that you can place behind the tree instead. Foamcore or a sheet of cloth on a simple stand will work fine here, too.
Lighting: Lighting can make or break your photos. Bright, harsh outdoor lighting can create too much contrast between the highlights and shadows, unless you have an expensive camera with high dynamic range and can edit the photos from raw. Even then, taking a mid-day, sunny shot usually means a less-than-ideal light angle for the light and shadows.
Taking the tree indoors and using a basic lighting setup gives us control over the intensity and direction of the light. You don’t need expensive studio or modeling lights to do this; a simple, inexpensive adjustable arm Anglepoise-style light fixture from Amazon or Ikea will do it. You can also use a utility flashlight. Any light source that you can easily arrange near the tree will work. Two or three lights will give you even more control (look up “three-point lighting” if you want to dive deeper).
When placing your light source, try to avoid facing the light head-on from the perspective of the camera (or using on-camera flash), as this will give a “deer in the headlights” look, flattening the subject and hiding the shadows. We want the light to sculpt the subject and the shadows to fall naturally. This usually means placing the light at the top-left or top-right at about 45 degrees on either axis. Not directly above, and not at 90 degrees to the side, but somewhere in between. The angle will vary depending on the forms of your tree, so experiment until you find something you like. Just keep in mind that light tends to look more natural when coming from above (light it from below if you're doing a horror shoot).
Light coming towards the camera, filtering through and showing the translucency of the leaves, can be effective too. In studio lighting terms, we usually call this a rim light, and it can be helpful to add this kind of effect with a secondary light source. Rim lights are good for highlighting the silhouette of your tree as well.
If you don’t have variable brightness lights, you can vary the intensity of the light by moving it further or closer to the subject. Usually, we would set up our key light - the main light source - first, and have it be relatively close to the subject. Then we can add a rim light or a fill light (to
fill in any overly dark shadows), but place them further away, so they complement rather than fight with the key light. You can even adjust the color of the light by getting different Kelvin-rated bulbs. For example, a cool (~6000K) rim light and a warm key light (~3500K). When taking photos indoors, consider doing it at night, so you can control the ambient lighting. IE, turn off nearby lights, TVs, etc, or use a lamp on the other side of the room as a subtle fill light.
If you need to take photos outdoors, in natural light, consider taking them around the golden hour (roughly an hour after sunrise or before sunset), when the sun is low in the sky, and take into consideration how the tree is arranged in relation to the sun. Since we can’t move the sun, we usually have to move the tree to find a good light angle.
Nice framing, and using a good camera on a tripod, with a slightly longer lens (50-85mm or so) to compress the perspective, can help too. But the cameras in most phones today are so good, and often have multiple lenses, so a fancy, expensive camera isn’t a requirement.
Here are a couple of test photos I made when setting up my backdrop that demonstrate how simple pre-bonsai material and house plants can look nice with a bit of care and attention to your lighting, background, etc.
