by revisiting macro photowork
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I fell in love with macro photography about a year and a half ago, going through a long learning process and taking lots of photos for many months.
It’s been an embarrassingly long time now since I took any new macro photos. It’s partly laziness in getting the bigger DSLR camera, the lenses and the extension tube out, especially if I have to change them after husband has used it with other lenses. When it comes to the technical side of photography, my memory does not retain the information for long without regular use. One gets too spoiled with today’s point and shoot cameras but ours does not have a great macro feature. Anyway, I’ve had a strong urge recently to take it up again and relearn it.
Here are some of my first little efforts. Having shot these indoors on a cloudy day, they came out very dark, but with iPhoto and PhotoShop I was thrilled to tease out some exciting-to-me results. The imperfections that I find in this kind of photography actually satisfy the artistic and creative side in me, sort of like the “happy accidents” I like to cultivate in etching and other printmaking processes.
Because I know you will ask what the subjects in these images are, I shall tell you they are small shells in a plant pot on the windowsill next to my computer desk in our home in a city on the west coast of Canada. Enjoy!
July 26, 2011 in Being an Artist, Photography, Photoworks, Textures by Marja-Leena
Have you ever been over to Paula’s House of Toast?
http://paulashouseoftoast.blogspot.com/
Zhoen, oh, yes, I visit there frequently. Her work is one of my inspirations. I wish I could afford a full macro lens like hers but my extension tube, though a bit limited, suits my needs for now.
Macroundulation, accent on “cround.”
Marly, you are the clever wordsmith, a hat tip to you.
I have much the same problem dealing with settings for fine photography and neither do I have a camera capable of true macro. These really are very nice and I’m glad I didn’t have to ask what they are.
ps: Landscape photography and tilt-shifts are out for me too but they’re nice to see.
Susan, I’m glad you like these as I do seem to have a leaning towards strange images, at least some of the time. Not sure what tilt-shifts are, some technical photo speak I suppose. (Showing my ignorance here.)
I’m amused by your sense of perfectionism (I can afford to be because I’m one of life’s great imperfectionists) when it comes to your chosen trade. Talk of dragging out all the impedimenta and being spoiled by point and shoot. I remember some other committed photographer talking about specialised, dedicated, often bulky equipment and making the point: if this stuff isn’t immediately available can you be said to own it? Because what is ownership without usage? An empty pea-pod. This is a philosophical matter which goes way beyond photography since it demonstrates how a minor instinct (reluctance in this case) can shape our lives. Oh sure, every so often you bust a gut and set everything up but in the profit–and-loss account of your profession you look back and realise you didn’t do as much of this type of work as you would have wished (eg, your adjective “embarrassing”). It’s not for me to pass judgement since for me a camera simply records information and, in my hands, has no aesthetic potential. Gosh, how I do go on.
Exquisite work Marja-Leena, especially “revisiting macro photowork”
BB, this could be a looong discussion in some Parisian cafe, for isn’t artmaking (including writing in your case) a struggle, full of questions about the worth of our work and ourselves? We edit, we examine, we redo, we rewrite, tear things up, pull our hair out… we are our own worst critics.
Choosing our tools and materials and gathering them together to work is a problem even for the non-artist unless one has a large and well-stocked and organized workshop/studio all to oneself. Maybe if one did only one kind of work all the time, say just watercolours or whittling? Maybe working digitally is easiest and cleanest as far as materials and equipment go? Anyway, food for thought, and that Parisian cafe?
Peter, welcome! Your comment came in as I was replying to BB’s. Thank you, your words mean a lot to me. I’ve long admired your work and was pleased to see it at qarrtsiluni.
I have a blog friend in western Massachusetts whose work takes him on long country drives (I think Ralph is a bridge engineer). His photographs have been wonderful for years but in the past year he’s added tilt-shift to his repertoire. In his case it seems to mean being able to focus on objects near and far at the same time. I thought you might enjoy a look.
Susan, thanks for the link – I did enjoy his photos and learned a bit about this ’tilt-shift’ lens. Oh dear, now I want that too!
Marja-Leena, these are really cool! My first thought was of oyster shells, so the images apparently hit their mark. 🙂
Thanks for visiting my blog. I’m excited about tilt-shift photography’s emulation of the effects available to medium/large format photographers in that it allows one to augment/manipulate depth-of-field (but not in the way commonly seen when Googling “tilt-shift photography,” which is almost always a way of using PhotoShop to selectively limit areas of sharp focus.)
Your work is stunning, and I’ll definitely be back!
Cunning, welcome and thank you! After visiting your wonderful photographs, I did read about tilt-shift photography in Wikipedia and noted the two different approaches. Is it possible to do the action with regular and/or zoom lenses in manual mode? It would be fun to try it out. I have so much to learn.
You had me stumped as to what the subjects were until you revealed them at the end of your post.
Says so much, doesn’t it, that seen upclose the perspectives are nearly always different from those seen from far. Applies to life, living, and people as much as it applies to small shells.
Anil, you say it so well, thanks, about my obsession for macro images.