Day 29: Making the most of the weather and fearing arrest – it’s all in a day’s work

Day 29 and I was so relieved to see the rain – not only because it offered some temporary and refreshing relief from this crazy heatwave, but also because it gave me a great opportunity to take some macro shots with natural raindrops. I was so excited that a 10 hour working day and a subsequent 40 minute walk home in the rain did not dampen my spirits (get it?)  😉  I got home, grabbed my camera and headed out to make the most of this opportunity.

I decided in advance that I would aim to capture 2 subjects;

a) insects alongside raindrops – to provide a natural scale and additional context to my usual macro imagery

b) raindrops on colourful flowers (below)

(Blog continues after this image…)

I am delighted to say that I discover a Mecca for both barely a stone’s throw away from our flat by the showhome and offices of a housebuilding company who’d planted some lovely border flowers and herbs that never fail to attract insects. However, it just so happens that this location is right slap bang in the city centre, and I was therefore subject to lots of crazy looks from the commuters, tourists, youths and drunks who passed by. For the first 5-10 minutes I felt really quite self conscious, but then after discovering bees, beetles, worms, wasps and flies I soon got over myself and threw myself into the photography session doing my usual i.e contorting myself into all sorts of shapes to get as close to the plants as possible, lying on the ground, hiding in bushes etc.. In fact, it was only when I raised my head after 40 minutes that I realised the large halogen lights which illumate the building site had switched on to illuminate myself in mid contortion  in full view of the city and to the surprise of a small group of onlookers who’d stopped to wonder what the heck I was doing. Looking skywards I realised that that there might be video camera pointed right at the building site and that I could, by now, have been causing quite a raucous in the security offices.  My mind turned to all kinds of stories I had been reading about in the press about innocent photographers frequently getting questioned and arrested, and I became anxious that I could unintentionally soon become one of them if I didn’t appear more ‘normal’ when photographing in public places. The thought lingered for a moment – log enough for me to wave pleasantly at my group of onlookers and ponder leaving – but then I noted tiny beetles on the flower before me and threw myself to the ground once more eager to capture the moment. In doing so I think I accidentally sat on the rear end of a worm and was distraught to see his backend much flatter that it should be. The sight of me seemingly picking at the floor with my nails talking to myself (i.e apologising to the worm and trying to part it’s flattened bottom from the floor) did nothing to support the onlooker’s perceptions that I was clearly an escaped lunatic.   I decided it might be time to quit whilst I was ahaed,so I called the husband to come and rescue me and take me out for dinner to celebrate a very successful shoot.

I tool over 300 pictures in the photo session and was delighted that, for the first time since starting the challenge, I had an extremely high ratio of 5* (i.e publishable) shots. It might seem logical that the longer you practice macro the higher the success rate – but when you are photographing animals / insects et nothing is guaranteed.

All the shots from day 29’s macro photography session are now available in my on line macro photography gallery, but I have also chosen to feature some of my favourites in this post (above and below).