Project 5

Give everyday objects like this an abstract look by shooting them with a macro lens. Adam Waring gets uncomfortably close…

Give everyday objects an abstract look by shooting them up close

When most of us talk about close-up photography, we think of ultra-close macro shots of the natural world with incredible levels of magnification that make bugs look like creatures from another planet or reveal the delicate details of flowers and plants. But shooting close-ups of everyday household objects can give them a unique and surprising perspective.

One of the – usually undesirable – properties of shooting extremely close to your subject is that depth of field is severely restricted. For this reason it’s normally recommended to shoot at narrow apertures – such as f/16 – to get as much depth of field as possible. Even so, it’s restricted to mere millimetres, and methods such as focus stacking – where multiple shots of the minuscule subject are taken at slightly different focus distances and merged together in software – are employed to get sharper shots. But we can use this optical anomaly to exaggerate the abstract effect we’re after, shooting a large, long object at a wide aperture to blow all but a tiny portion of it out of focus.

The good thing is, you don’t even need a macro lens to get reasonably close-up shots. The 18-55mm kit lens, supplied with many Canon cameras, will do a decent job. Indoor macro shooting makes for a fun rainy-day project, and the resultant images can have the viewer scratching their heads, wondering what on earth it is they’re looking at.

It’s a fork, by the way.