CAPTURE ABSTRACT MACRO

Shoot miniature reflection spheres by focusing on water droplets in nature

Shoot miniature reflection spheres by focusing on water droplets in nature

Macro shooting opens up new doors for creative and abstract photography. The use of a macro lens allows the capture of fine detail, in addition to a highly scaled-back sense of context, giving the macro and close-up genre tremendous scope for capturing novel subjects in a world of their own.

A popular subject is water and its interaction with natural scenes. Droplets on leaves, or – as is the case with the image featured here – suspended in a spider’s web are so effective, as they distort an already unfamiliar view of the world. By cropping in close on droplets, you can resolve the background that lays beyond the water when looking through the droplets, or reflect the surroundings on the surface, as if they are miniature lenses. Indeed, there are now products on the market designed specifically to produce the same effect on a larger scale – the lens ball, for example.

For the most dramatic results it is often best to use the extremes of focusing distance, and shoot a frame-filling composition. This removes peripheral detail and enables the viewer to focus on the image within the droplets. This ‘field’ compositional technique creates the feeling of repeated detail extending beyond the edges of the frame forever, adding to the abstract nature of the scene. Here’s how this technique can be achieved…

1

FIND A SUBJECT

Look around your garden for a spider’s web that is suspended across a gap, allowing droplets to be isolated from surrounding elements. You should be able to move the camera for multiple angles.

2

GET CLOSE

To ensure that you’re shooting at your lens’s closest focus distance, set the closest value in the focus window. Move the lens towards the subject until it’s focused in the viewfinder or on the LCD.

3

VARY ANGLE

Try varying the pitch and yaw angle of the lens to bring a variety of visible background details into the frame. This can create different views of the same subject, with only a minimal shift in camera position.

4 FINE-TUNE FOCUS

Make micro adjustments to focus using a magnified view to guarantee sharpness. Decide whether focusing on the droplet surfaces or the reflected image gives the best sharpness.

5 USE SPOT METERING

Switch metering mode and take a reading from highlights on the droplets. This ensures that unwanted background detail is removed, creating studio-style lighting and picking out fine detail.

6 ADD BACKGROUND EFFECTS

A dark background acts as a blank canvas that we can add selective detail to. An LED torch can create dappled light, producing a tunnel-like edge effect and rim-lighting the droplets.

AFTER CLOSE ATTENTION By using close focusing, context is controlled, while the attractive form of the droplets and intriguing reflections can become the clear subject of the image

BEFORE NOT CLOSE ENOUGH A looser crop, using a lower magnification, has incorporated too much peripheral detail into the frame, spoiling the illusion of an endless, repeated droplet pattern