Macro Photography - Having a Microscopic Eye 📷

It's the ongoing mission of any good photographer to capture the world as they see it and convey their artistic vision through their work. The quintessential street photographer is a humanist at heart, looking for that candid moment through which a story may be told.

I took this image during a well publicised protest back in 2014. The place was swarming with photojournalists and street photographers, all there hoping to catch a piece of the controversy and the action. This picture still stands out to me today as perhaps the first time that I felt I'd captured a truly candid moment, a freeze frame with its own singular story.

Being primarily a wildlife photographer however, I see myself as something of a patient collector; slowly ticking off different species on a long wishlist of elusive creatures (one day I'll photograph a blue whale, I swear it). It is this plurality of sub-disciplines that makes photography so attractive as both a hobby and an artform. There's an avenue for almost everyone, as this crude infographic I made clearly shows:

You may need to right click on the image and view it in full resolution for it to be fully legible.

All joking aside, different aspects of photography require that one employ different skill-sets, as well as being familiar with different types of gear dependent on the given situation. More important perhaps is the perspective with which one approaches their work. As I'll explore in a future blog, being a successful bird photographer can mean thinking like a bird and attempting to understand the environment from a birds perspective (sounds strange I know). This methodology is even more relevant when applied to the world of macro photography.

Successfully achieving the desired effect with this image required that I perceived the spider as its prey might. Only by first putting myself in the mindset of a housefly, did I decide to compose the picture as its shown. I wanted the spider to appear as though ominously approaching the lens. I included a foreground to imply distance between the prey animal and the predator, as I hoped this would introduce tension to the image. Choosing to freeze frame at this moment leaves one wondering, what would be the fate of the observer, if you were indeed a miniature photographer sitting on the end of this leaf?

Macro photography can be as challenging as it rewarding. Dedicated macro lenses are designed to focus on a subject such that they are reproduced to a 1:1 magnification ratio. I won't go in to exactly what this means here, but in short it allows the subject to be projected onto the camera sensor in true 1:1 life size. In practice, using a macro lens with a focal length of 105mm while attempting to achieve a 1:1 magnification ratio, requires that you are very close to a small subject when taking the shot. This all translates into an extremely shallow depth of field, so if you're photographing a butterfly on a leaf, the slightest gust of wind could move the leaf by as little as centimetre and completely ruin the shot.

I encourage you to view this image in full resolution and you'll see the shallow depth of field in effect. The butterfly's eye and a portion of its wing are in focus. Upon viewing the upper portion of its wing however, it becomes apparent how quickly the rest of the subject fades from focus.

Another example of this here, notice how the wasps left eye remains out of focus despite only being a few millimetres further from the lens that its right eye.

The real purpose of this post is to convey how important perspective is when pursuing photography effectively. Whether you're a street photographer aiming to get that candid shot, or a wildlife photographer trying to depict an animal in its natural habitat, the right perspective can help you convey the feeling you're looking for. For me, photography is about being as unobtrusive as possible, blending in and seeking to understand the effect my presence has on my would be subjects. To that end macro photography requires us to think small, to think like a snail or a spider, to catch any given moment from their unique point of view.

Above all photography should be fun, so on that note I'll leave you with a few "macro" shots that I had fun taking. Please feel free to actively engage with me and comment on my blogs. I'll be producing more content like this in the future and your support will incentivise me as I begin my journey on steemit. Cheers for now : )