Macro Photography

Macro photography is close-up photography. The classical definition is that the image projected on the "film plane" (i.e., film or a digital sensor) is close to the same size as the subject. Lenses designed for macro are usually at their sharpest at macro focus distances and are not quite as sharp at other focus distances.

I feel that I have a very simplistic style and Macro photography some how suits this. I like how a subject can take up the entire frame but when magnified to the extreme it can be difficult to recognise. Another reason for my fascination of Macro would have to be that when a tiny subject is scaled up, we can see things that we may not have realised were even there.

At the time of taking this photo I was unaware that there was a spider web in the shot

Cactus with very short depth of field f/2.8

Centre of a flower in the garden

I decided to try macro in black and white as I find it to be very dramatic. I feel that the drama that black white brings to a shot gives simplistic subjects much more texture and interest.

Not quite as extreme magnification as other shots, however it is still macro and it is one of my favourites.

 

Juxtaposition

My favourite definition of juxtaposition comes from the “Dictionary of Art Terms” on “BluemoonWebDesign.com”. They state that Juxtaposition is “the act of placing or positioning items in the image area side by side or next to one another to illustrate some comparison.” This definition clearly tells us that Juxtaposition doesn’t just mean “contrast” as I had previously believed.

I decided to take a photograph of my girlfriend Lindsay holding a Polaroid camera whilst looking at some of the photographs that she had taken.

Lindsay is a photographer, however she doesn’t shoot with a Polaroid camera. I took some of her photographs and created the “Polaroids” in Photoshop, these can be seen below in more detail.

Evidence of Action

Evidence of Action implies exactly what you’d think, a shot of a scene where it is clear that something has just happened. I decided that one of the best ways to illustrate such an event would be to shoot a broken object. Being very clumsy it wasn’t long before I dropped a plate, so grabbed my camera and captured the result.

My shot of the shattered plate clearly tells us that it has just been dropped.

Examples of illustrations regularly used in advertising include:

• Shields/umbrellas/fortifications and cupped hands (insurance)
• Emotional Displays, smiling to show people are happy with product/service and vice versa
• Companies create logos to make themselves instantly recognisable (Nike Tick)
• Feathers are used to illustrate that something doesn’t weigh very much
• Different shapes are used to symbolise many things, heart = “love”, crucifix = “hope and faith”, red cross = “help and rescue”
• Colours are used to symbolise emotions and temperature, red = “hot and passion”, blue = “cold”
• Growth; a shoot of a plant beginning to grow, silhouettes of 1 person at multiple stages of their life
• Excess; something overflowing
• Crime; white body outline, handcuffs, yellow tape, swag bag
• Silence; finger held to lips
• Poverty; people begging, starving children, people living in squalor

7: Narrative and Illustration

"The aim of 7: Narrative and Illustration is to help you to approach photography from the point of view of the subject and to show how to tell a story both in a set of pictures and within a single picture. This includes learning the techniques of visual analogy, juxtaposition and certain special effects."

Photography isn't just about capturing attractive images. Sometimes the subject is far more important than composition, balance or colour thus meaning that a photograph for a newspaper or magazine is generally used due to how successful it is at informing us about a person or event. However important the subject is, the image will always be improved if it is skilfully handled.

In photography, a Narrative is the way of telling a story through a set of images. This tends to be easier than trying to sum up a story in a single photograph (Illustration). However, Illustration can have much more impact and ultimately be more memorable.

Thoughts and Feelings

The aim of 6: Artificial Light was to familiarise me with the properties of Artificial Light sources so that I can achieve successful exposures and colour balance. Another was to introduce me to the use of photographic lighting and the idea of controlling light to create particular effects.

Artificial Light is much weaker than daylight, therefore a tripod needed if a low ISO setting (eg ISO 100) is being used. For hand held shooting, a high ISO setting can be used (eg ISO 1600). The drawback to high ISO is that photographs will be very grainy.

Whilst completing Artificial Light I have been made more aware of the three types of available light; Tungsten, Fluorescent and Vapour Lamps. With a camera's white balance set to daylight, Tungsten light photographs reddish, Fluorescent - cool blue, Sodium Vapour Lamps - Orangey Yellow and Multi/Mercury Vapour Lamps - cool tones. I have learnt that to counteract the colour cast from these light sources I need to place filters over my lens, eg to shoot with daylight balanced film in a tungsten lit environment, a blue filter needs to be applied in order to capture natural tones. Alternatively, when using my DSLR, I can simply change the white balance setting to Tungsten.

I have also learnt how to appropriately utilise Photographing lighting and the accessories associated with it. To help me in the completion of a number of projects I purchased a budget studio flash, diffuser and created some basic reflectors and an absorber. Using a diffuser reduces contrast and smooths out shadows. Reflectors are useful in reducing contrast even more. When placed on the opposite of a subject to the light source, they bounce light back towards the subject. Absorbers increase contrast. When placed as close to a subject as possible, on the opposite side to the light source, they inhibit light from reflecting back towards the subject.

To take a standard portrait shot with minimal contrast, the flash unit should be diffused, aimed directly at the model and be at the same level as her and the camera. Alternatively, a second flash unit could be used. Each one should be placed either side of the camera and aimed directly at the model, reflectors can then be used opposite each flash unit and slightly behind the model to ensure there's no dark areas on her sides.

Another use of Artificial Light is to capture light trails at night. This is the use of long shutter speeds to capture any light moving across the frame as a stream. One of the most popular ways to use this technique is by shooting cars head and tail lights. This is quite a technical process as the shutter speed has to be long enough to capture the passage of light (or multiple lights) through the frame, yet the aperture and ISO need to be set so that the rest of the image remains correctly exposed (or not exposed at all).

Light Intensity

To help me learn what happens to light from flash units at different distances I recorded the aperture I would need to use to correctly expose a shot every 2 metres. I set my shutter speed to 1/25sec and laid out a tape measure along the floor. Unfortunately the cable for my flash meter is only 8 metres long and therefore could only take light readings up to this distance. Pointing the flash unit directly towards me and holding the meter towards it, I began to take readings at at ISO 100 at 1m then 2m, 4m, 6m and finished at 8m. I decided to take readings at different ISOs (100, 200 and 400) to compare the differences. My results are shown below.

Table of results

Graph showing how the distance from a flash unit effects exposure with the shutter speed locked at 1/20sec

From the graph we can clearly see that the closer the flash unit is to a subject, the smaller the aperture needs to be in order to correctly expose a shot.

I have also added two extra lines to the graph; at midday on a sunny day and at midday on a cloudy day. These lines are perfectly straight across the graph because distance doesn’t make any difference to how bright the sun is as it is already very far away.

Opening the aperture by one f-stop will let twice as much light into the lens. At twice the distance from any point near the flash unit the light level will be four times less so to compensate for this the aperture will have to be opened by two stops.

Gigs

I have quite an intense love for music and so over the past few months I’ve been to a number of gigs with my girlfriend Lindsay. Unfortunately I was unable to take my DSLR to any of these but that didn’t stop me taking my 10megapixel Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS1 with 12x Optical Zoom. With my liking of Rock music and being up for hearing anything new I went to see Alkaline Trio (one of Lindsay’s favourite bands) and actually managed to capture some quite reasonable shots.

Alkaline Trio

    

     

The Damned

Next we went to see The Damned. The Damned have been my favourite band for almost 8 years (I’m 22 now so would have been 14 or 15 around the time that I discovered them). They formed in 1976 and became Britain’s first Punk band with their single New Rose, released on October 22nd, that year. This was quite a surreal experience for me as I never believed that I would see them live with not even being born when they formed.

 

     

   

 

The Damned – Smash it Up

Green Day

And finally we went to see Lindsay’s favourite, Green Day. Possibly the most famous of the three bands I’ve listed here. We were much further back at this one as it was in an open air stadium but the natural outdoor light has enabled me to capture some very pleasing shots.

 

In the future I hope to get my DSLR to some of these gigs and capture some much more impressive shots. It’s a shame at Green Day that my Battery ran out, they put on an incredible show of fireworks, explosions, water canons and all sorts!