Last year in Belgium.

Taken with my Nikon D810 and a sigma art series 24-105. 

 

Satsuki photography technique

 

Due to the cold weather this Satsuki was brought in. It lives in a small greenhouse during the winter for frost protection and a bit of warmth - but it was too cold last night - so in it came. This gave an opportunity to clear off all the old leaves and critters and then thoroughly spray it with insecticide. 

I am hoping that with the right water and fertiliser this tree will grow vigorously this coming season.

My backdrop for photography is very glossy and wrinkly and I don't have great lighting gear so I opted to paint the tree with a hand held light on a 30 second exposure - you can see my hand and the blurry light as I fill the image. This bottom picture is an uncropped raw image direct to JPG. The top image is the same one cropped with the exposure tweaked. 

Pomegranate 3 years

 

Here it is in the garage where its spending the winter. I have cleaned off all the old leaves and trimmed off the longer shoots. I struggled to get enough growth in the first years.

I struggled with leaf curl and purple leaves due to nutrient deficiencies that I couldn't correct. Turns out it doesn't like tap water and it wants a tonne of food. And it also likes extra calcium like citrus.

Once I have enough foliage I will begin to select branches and wire a bit. For now I am just cleaning up the dead wood with a ball cutter.

The twigs are really brittle. I broke off a few - luckily nothing critical.