Today (Day 20 of the macro challenge) I spent the afternoon in York Museum Gardens exploring the wonderful word of insects. It was macro heaven! Bees, Wasps, Hover flies, Butterflies, Greenflies,Ladybirds and BlueBottle flies and lots of other insects I had never even noticed before and do not even know what they are! It took me an hour or so to get my confidence to get close to the bees and wasps – but when I did I was rewarded with some decent shots.
Today was my first outside photo shoot for the macro challenge and I relished the opportunity to shoot at a lower ISO. It’s been bliss to come home and not have to do a lot of post production noise reduction on ISO 2000 shots! It’s also been great to have a sunny late afternoon light to shoot in.
Its’ fair to say that I am DELIGHTED with todays’ shots – I know they are a bit stereotypical of macro photography (everyone shoots flies) – but it was a real eye opener to see the incredible detail on these everyday insects and to have the opportunity to glimpse into their world. I especially loved the Hover Flies – after half an hour, two of them became accustomed to my presence and allowed me to get get ever and ever closer to get some cracking shots of them collecting pollen on Lilly Stamens. What’s more -these shots have had precious little done to them in post production – they have not been succumbed to the usual macro post processing,in fact, two of them I have left as they are with no changes what so ever apart from a tiny crop for composition purposes! That’s when I take the greatest pride in my work – when great shots are natural and require no work.
Two of my favourites are posted here (above and below) and the rest are now available in my online macro gallery . As ever, I welcome your thoughts and feedback.
