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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)

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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).

Day 28 and this could, technically, be the end of my macro challenge – but I think I am going to try and go the whole hog and do 30 straight days.  It’s getting harder and harder now to find new subjects around the house. I find myself wandering from room to room to seek out subjects, looking for new fabrics, tiny insects or interesting food stuffs.

I decided to trial a photography session with man made subjects. I rummaged through draws and cabinets and stumbled across some old foreign currency. I noted how beautiful and detailed the artwork can be on these pieces and decided to see how images of them would turn out (see above), wondering if I could capture the texture of the paper and print. I was reasonably happy with the results but found this to be a much less satisfying subject to photograph as there is little of the ‘unknown’ element.

So I then sought inspiration in the fridge once more, and decided to see what the texture of an inside of a radish would look like when sliced thinly and held up to the light to make it transparent (see below). I tried several light sources – natural and artificial, but found the most interesting results came from sticking the radish slice to the tv  (thank goodness the hubby was not home to witness this moment of ‘inspiration!’)

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My stomach calling, I paused the photography session for a snack, only then to realise how beautifal a poppadom would be when photographed in macro- so I put my snack down and instead decided to photograph it in various different light levels (see below). I found propping it up on the settee in natural light gave the most satisfying results (I’ll be finding those crumbs for weeks!).

All in all, tonight was an eclectic photography session …but would you expect anything less from me 🙂

Day 27 of the macro challenge and today I have been experimenting with light. I chose one subject for the entire session and then altered natural and artificial levels to see the impact it would create. I made a conscious decision to do very little post production work so I could be as true to the true effect as possible (plus it’s a Sunday and after a hard week of photography I fancied giving myself an easy ride today!)

I chose a dying daisy flower as my inspiration. Whilst having my breakfast I noticed that petals and then tiny seeds would fall off the dying plant whenever a gentle breeze blew through the open window. I quickly grabbed my camera and Ali (my husband) placed a blue glass brick under the vase to collect the seeds as the flower decayed. This prompted me to take a radical departure from my usual natural macro shots and I decided to create an artificial setting for the first time this month (!). I grabbed an empty bottle from the cleaning cupboard and used it to spray water droplets on the glass brick, onto which the seeds would fall and be placed.   I then grabbed a head torch and set it to the lowest setting to illuminate the glass brick and seeds on top. I then took four shots, amending the light and aperture as I went along.

The first shot (above)was taken at ISO 1250, f/11, 1/80 sec and exposure bias -2/3 EV with no artificial lighting.

The second shot (below) was taken at ISO 1250, f/ 11, 1/250 sec and exposure bias -2/3 EV.  The shutter speed was assisted by using the head torch to directly illuminate the seed.

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The third shot (below)was taken at ISO 1250, f/ 11, 1/50 sec and exposure bias -2/3 EV.  I angled the head torch away from the seed but so that it shined through the glass brick and illuminated the subject gently from beneath. I also asked Ali to stand in front of the window to diffuse the natural light. I love the way the water is now illuminated beneath the seed, moving the focus from the seed itself to the water droplets.

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The fourth shot (below) was taken at ISO 1250, f/18, 1/40 sec and exposure bias -2/3 EV with no artificial lighting, but with the glass brick positioned to benefit from half of the natural illuminating from the window. I also used a laptop to block the harsh light in the background of the image, but its size meant that enough natural light could still  penetrate the glass brick to illuminate the seed.

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I love the fact that this experient has produced four very different shots of the same subject and has provided me with some valuable learnings along the way.

I’d be interested to know which is your favourite.

Several other images from today’s macro photo session are also available in my online macro gallery.

Day 26, and after 4.5 hours in the field I am left with just 14 five star (publishable) shots. Is this good enough?

At the start of the macro challenge I was lucky if I had one usable shot a night, but I feel let down with 14. I think it’s because of the time and effort spent out in the field today – after a month of using the 100mm Canon EF macro lens I expected more from myself on a day devoted to macro photography in one of the UK’s most beautiful woodlands. However, today was the first time in a month that I had used the macro lens on my 40D camera opposed to Ali’s Canon 7D and I have to tell you, I felt and saw a difference.  I used to be so familiar and comfortable with my Canon 40D, but having had 26 days of intensive use of the 7D it was a shock to the system to go back to my 40D. It was lighter, it felt ‘less substantial’ and it did not seem to be as responsive  in low light situations as the 7D, and I missed having ISO 2000 – now, this is a lot coming from a woman who, prior to the macro challenge, hated going above 600ISO if she could help it!

Am I making excuses for a shoddy day’s work – possibility, possibly not!?  I have been reflecting tonight about the fact that the second time you take a newly discovered subject or style of photography it’s far harder than the first time. For example, last weekend I had a ball exploring insect macro properly for this first time, but I now realise that the surprise and proud feeling you have when you capture a new style of photography can never be replicated – and you find yourself being so much harder on yourself the second/ third/ forth time round etc.

Today I focussed on wasps, bees, hover flies and blue bottles. Two of my favourite shots are detailed in this blog ( above and below), the rest are now available in my macro gallery. It’s appropriate for me to highlight that I  have turned a lot of today’s shots into black and white – and in several cases have also left the coloured versions in the gallery for you to compare and contrast which is more successful. I’ll be honest as to why I have done this

i) I am intrigued to see what nature’s mst colourful insects look like in monorchrome

ii) Black and white is very forgiving when you might have made a few mistakes out in the field 😉

I leave you today with a few thoughts:

iii) How often we (I!) often overlook the local forests / cityscapes / parks / wildlife as a source of inspiration

iv) How we can take a skill for granted – it’s only when it’s challenged that you find it most apparent and frustrating!

v) When experimeting regularly with photography it is quite possible to learn something new everyday – embrace it!

vi) Ladybirds are damn hard photography subjects!

vii) A day shooting insects in macro makes you itch the whole evening after (I swear they are crawling on me!)

Day 25 of the macro challenge and I have set up a darkroom in my bathroom – I kid you not! I blame it all on Glenna Walker, fellow photographer, who inspired me with some of the most stunning flower photography I have seen in a long time. Glenna had used tourch light and long exposure in the depth of a Canadian evening to create some amazingly illuminated silhouettes of flowers against a pitch black background. I fell instantly in love and wondered if I could learn from Glenna and try and apply this to macro photography.

However, I had two problems:

1) I have no easy access to a garden..we are currently living on the 5th floor of an inner city flat and the only garden I own is over 200 miles away in Scotland (I don’t think our tenant would take lightly to me pitching up in the dead of night to photograph my gladioli!)

2) The UK summertime means that darkness does not fall for many hours yet, and even them, the city lights render complete darkness an impossibly.

I had no choice but to seek out the one room in the flat that has no natural light source – our bathroom – and within this, set up a dark room situation. I grabbed our black pillow cases and a pair of my black pyjama trousers and set about creating a solid black background for the shoot. I then gathered a white LED head-torch, a lemon, an apple, a sprig of basil and some flowers and locked myself in – emerging seconds later having realised I had not got the foggiest where the setting was on the camera to illuminate the screen so I could amend my exposure, aperture, ISO .etc 🙂  Once I had acquainted myself with this most useful of functions I settled in the bathroom for the evening, sprawled on the floor beside the toilet. Whoever said photography was glamorous? I stayed in there for about 40 mins and had not realised my back had seized until I tried to re-arrange my lemon.

Believe it or not, the most bizarre part of the evening is yet to come…

…My husband arrived home later in the photography session and heard me yell “hello” from the depths of the flat. Having looked around for a while and wondering if I was playing a weird hide and seek game, he worryingly shouted to ask where I was. At that point I opened the bathroom door and squinted into the sunlight to say hello. He took one look at my contorted shape, the pyjama bottoms on the bathroom floor, the LED illuminating the lemon and suppressed several giggles. I am lucky he understands me – lesser people would have filed for divorce on the grounds of insanity 🙂 He closed the door and left me to it – returning seconds later to ask to use the loo…most inconvenient 😉  He promised not to touch my lemon and alter my lightening, so I let him use the facilities before the bathroom was declared a darkroom once more and sealed off to all visitors.

Thankfully I think it was all worth it. Whilst in the ‘darkroom’ I discovered that the flowers I had chosen to take had been woven entirely in a spider’s web – a detail I had not noticed in daylight. This provided an amazing opportunity for some unique  macro photography.  The first of the shots I would like to share with you is detailed above. It was taken at f/20, ISO 1250 and with a shutter speed of 4 sec – aided by the fact that the camera could sit steady on the floor.  The second image I would like to share is provided below. It was taken at f/7.1, ISO 640 and a shutter speed of 13 sec, again aided by the camera sitting flat on the floor.  I do wonder if, for both these shots, I could have got a slightly sharper image by using my remote shutter release?

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Once I was comfortable that I had captured the detail of the web, I moved onto playing around with the light and how it illuminates the flowers, amending the intensity, location and direction of the light. This is when I captured the image below. It was taken at f/10, ISO 1250 and a shutter speed of 1/2 sec. Now I must confess to having done some post processing work on this image to amend the curves, exposure and fill light to create this effect. I have not done much – but I had initially overexposed the shot and it was not as atmospheric as I had hoped, hence my work in Bibble5 to amend it accordingly to under exposure the darker colours and overexpose the brighter colours.

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Now after all the build up I know you’d be disappointed if I did not show you the lemon 🙂

The image of the apple is also stored in my macro gallery.

It’s day 24 of the macro challenge and I tore myself away from a potential night out drinking with colleagues to come home and work on my macro photography (that’s what I call willpower and dedication!). Thankfully it was so, so rewarding – I had a fantastic night’s work with four successful images that I’d like to share with you today.

My first is ‘The Last Breath’  (see above), a silhouetted image catching the last breath of a dying fly. It’s not as pin sharp as I’d usually like and is not the close up I’ve traditionally opted for with macro photography, but I love poignancy of the image, the portrayal of death captured in such a simple and eye catching way. It was taken at 1/500 sec at f5.6 and ISO 800. The ISO was a little higher than I should have used, because the fly was on a windowsill and benefited, therefore, from an abundance of early evening summer light – but when I saw the situtaion unfurl I did not have time to react and alter all my settings as I would otherwise have liked. ‘He’ held this pose for barely a few seconds before collapsing and being blown away by the wind.

The second image (below) is ‘A Tiny House Guest’ . I had spent most of the photography session trawling the corners of our house to see if I could find a spider. I searched high and low, but it was not until I went upstairs to write this blog that I noticed a teeny tiny wee shape under the handrail for our stairs – it was a tiny wee house guest – a spider concealed in the shadows of the bannister, shy and wary of my presence. I crouched and contorted my body into various positions to try and get a picture of ‘him’ in his hiding place. Believe it or not, this was the first shot I took and, unbeknown to me it worked out perfectly – apart from a tiny bit of noise reduction I have done hardly anything to this in post production…luck and chance was on my side tonight. It was taken at f5.6 and 1/50 sec at ISO 800 with flash. I chose not to crop the image at all because I like the depth of field provided by the wall – it puts the spider into perspective and gives some scale to the image that might otherwise be lost with an extreme close up.

My third image is also of a spider” ‘Er Indoors” – I located this spider one on our roof and crawled out for a closer look (panic not – we might be 5 floors up but we have a flat roof outside our bedroom window!). I saw her crouching inside the safety of her web, retreating slowly as I tentatively approached across the delicate roof tiles. I took a chance to take a shot before she retreated under the weathered  leading of the roof. She is concealed by her web, but I really like this image because it’s rare for me to chose to display a macro photography of an insect that’s concealed by it’s habitat – I usually prefer ‘clean’ images.  She was taken at f5.6 and 1/80sec with a flash to assist illumination of her eyes and delicate hairs. Please do take a look and let me know what you think.

The final image is “Nature’s Tentacles”. This is a dandelion seed caught in a spider’s web – captured whilst I was on our roof looking for the spider detailed above.  I love the ‘under the sea’ and other worldly effect of the image – it’s not what you’d expect of an image like this. It took me ages to wait until the wind calmed and the seed was in the perfect position, and I tried really hard to choose a depth of field which allowed me to capture the seed, its feathers and the web. Again, it’s not as pin sharp as I would like – but I was standing on a roof in my PJs so maybe you’ll forgive me? Again, please do take a look and let me know what you think.

I hope you get as much enjoyment from the images as I did taking them 🙂

OK, It’s time for me to ‘fess up… Last night I had a night off from macro photography. That’s right – for the first time in 22 days I was so tired I could not so much as lift my camera – a shocking lack of dedication I know. Never-the-less, it’s now day 23 and I have bounced back into the challenge to bring you another 2 images chosen from tonight’s photography session.

Over the last 23 days have learnt that I have four favourite and fail-safe macro subjects that I not only enjoy taking, but I can also be relatively assured of some good shots with. These are;

1. Food (especially fruit and veg)
2. Fabrics (anything with a deep pile works best)
3. Insects (I cannot get enough of them)
4. Flowers (Somewhat clichéd as a choice for macro photographers, but rewarding never-the-less).