extreme close-up photography, usually of very small subjects...in which
the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size
Wikipedia
"Micro photography??" was my first reaction when my evil friend Malik mentioned macro photography. "Maacro, not micro," he corrected me, and went on to explain that close-up photos bring out unexpected shapes and patterns in flowers, leaves, bugs, etc. They opened up entirely new ways of looking at things that are familiar.
Hmm, if you say so.
Malik never just "mention" things for no reason (double negative intended). And things he got me into in the past were time-consuming, expensive, or most often, both. Hence my apprehension.
Backtracking a little bit, my relationship to photography has been patchy. I've taken some good pictures before, and I've always liked to play with composition and light. Most of my photographs are taken with a point-and-shoot camera, and more recently, with my cell phone.
Except at one point in my life when I was taking photographs of fast-moving subjects under poor lighting. I needed better control over the camera setting, and the fixed lens point-and-shoot wasn't cutting it. So I invested in an entry-level digital SLR, and after a bit of research, added a very bright prime lens (which I bought at a little shop on the back street of Akihabara, but that's another story). So if you are taking the photograph of, say, a punk band in the dark recess of a dive bar, I can definitely share some technical tips.
With some trial and error I got pretty comfortable with the DSLR, but stopped using it after a while. I found it too bulky to carry around to capture those serendipitous moments in my everyday life. I didn't want to take it outdoors much because, once again, it was heavy and cumbersome, and also because I was afraid of damaging the expensive equipment. Cell phone camera became my go-to in the last few years, especially after I bought Pixel 2, which takes incredible photographs, and equally important, it's always with me.
The photo above was taken with Pixel 2, during one of my recent trips to Cambria, CA. I wanted to play with the late afternoon sun peeking through scale-like clouds and reflected on the water. I had to "fool" the camera's automatic setting to get the effect, and the quality (saved as JPEG and retouched with stock photo editor) isn't the best, but still, it's got a pretty amazing amount of details for what it is.
Okay, back to macro photography. I googled "macro photography" to see what Malik was talking about. To be honest I wasn't exactly thrilled with the images I pulled up. Some were pretty in a conventional sort of way (e.g., flowers and butterflies); many, like close-up shots of flies and spiders, were butt ugly (sorry...). Also, after reading a couple of "beginner's guide" type articles, I arrived at an estimate of $1500-2000 to buy decent start-up equipment. I'm all for trying new things, but it's a pretty steep price tag for just getting my feet wet.
So what changed my mind about macro photography? Read my next post to find out.
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