Project 'Inside' 5 - red pepper

A dull and rainy day was best spent making one of my infrequent trips to the supermarket to stock up, working through that pile of ironing that's been waiting for me  - and then, in the afternoon, practising with my macro lens some more. I retrieved a red pepper from the fridge, before it started looking too shrivelled to be nice. There's something about the red and green combo that is pleasing and attention-grabbing. These were just lit by the light through the skylight in my attic. On a cloudy day it gives a nice even spread, ideal for photography.

Project 'Inside' 4: Alstroemeria flower

I bought some alstromerias - the lily of the Incas - both to cheer myself up and to practise some macro photography. To be honest, I soon get bored with this kind of work. I'd love to be able to recreate those pretty, soft focus flower photos that I see everywhere on my social media photography feeds. It seems too technical a process to be really creative, as far as I'm concerned, fiddling around with a tiny depth of field and trying to get the lighting and focus spot on. I did, however, enjoy the way the close focus brought out all the subtle colours in the petals. This is one bloom from the spray; each stem has four or five of these individual blooms and they are relatively small so this is a larger than life-size picture.

Project 'Inside' 2

More idling away of time in lockdown... This triptych is made with paper and coloured acetates through my macro lens.

More macro practice

My mastery of macro photography is still very much 'a work in progress'. The depth of field is very narrow with a macro lens and, given that I can't really see the detail on the screen on the back of the camera, I'm finding getting the focus right is a very hit and miss affair. Still, practice makes perfect or so they say. Some of these approximated to what I was trying to achieve...

I'm awestruck by the beauty and variety of our flora, especially when viewed so close up. Many of these blooms were tiny, on alpine plants. It always amazes me how our world has so much to wonder at; so many different creatures and plants, so extravagantly formed, with such exquisite detail. We should treasure it more than we do.

The alpine succulent below reminded me of one of those Chinese dragons.

'And all of creation sing with me now; 

Fill up the heavens, let His glory resound.'

An unimportant object

The project for my online group in October was a bit of a challenge. The theme was 'an unimportant object, something that a burglar would probably leave behind but that to you is actually significant'. That in itself wasn't too hard. I chose a tiny snail shell, no bigger than my pinky fingernail. I find I am drawn to natural objects, so around the house I have a few small collections of water-smoothed pebbles gathered from various beaches, feathers I've picked up on my walks and some little shells like this one. Nothing of use to a burglar! I enjoyed the challenge of capturing the exquisite shell with my macro lens.

The second part of the brief was to render it in a manner inspired by a photographer called Ray Spence, whose work is definitely 'edgy'. (See HERE).  (I can't say I really like much of it, but that's just a personal view and I do like that he is doing something different and thoughtful.) He often uses the wet plate collodion technique, an early photographic methodology. Thankfully we weren't expected to do that! But we were invited to use a square format, monochrome and to capture something of the spirit of that technique in our photos.

I don't know if I succeeded... I did have fun playing, using a texture layer and a border to try to achieve the right feel to the image.

Macro practice

I haven't found much time to practice with my 50mm macro lens yet, so I decided to take only that one to RHS Harlow Carr this time. It is interesting trying to take scenic shots like those I showed on Sunday. It works quite well but it's a challenge remembering that I've got to walk backwards and forwards rather than zoom the lens to get the framing I'm after. 

Close-ups are nice, with a lovely blur to the background, though I'm still not that good at getting the focus point exactly where I want it. It's all trial and error. I managed to find some wonderful colours though - and that is welcome as the nights draw in and the colour leaches out of the world. 

Macro experiments

There are more boring and sensible things I should be spending my money on but I splurged on a macro lens. I've been hankering after a 50mm prime lens for some time and came across a Zeiss 50mm macro lens, secondhand, for a reasonable price. (Not that any photo equipment is 'reasonable' really. It's an expensive hobby!) Its first outing was to Harlow Carr gardens. I have such a lot to learn... The vast majority of my attempts were incorrectly focussed. Here is a selection of a few that came out halfway decent. The alpine house proved to be a happy hunting ground for macro shots (lots of miniature plants and no wind!).