Misuzu Photography: Macro
Hello and happy Monday... Happy August too!
It was my birthday on Friday and I had a fantastic week seeing friends and family, going out for drinks and food... and just generally having a lovely time. On my actual birthday, me and Pixie went to see Moana at the cinema and had lunch at Wagamama. It was perfect.
But anyway, on to the topic of this week's blog post. I had a play around with one of my birthday presents on Saturday. Dave bought me a macro lens for my Fuji X-Pro 1 camera. I was suuuuuper excited to have a play around with it because I've wanted one for ages but never got around to actually buying one.
I went to Hem Heath and took some photos. It was difficult because it was quite sunny and at the time, I wasn't 100% sure if I'd taken any images that were actually any good. It was quite difficult to see the screen most of the time because of the sun. But when I got the images up on my laptop, I was actually really really happy with them and I'm excited to share them with you. But first, here's a selfie of me about to take some macro images:
Textures
I was having loads of fun finding interesting textures to try out the macro lens on. These first ones are my favourites from this section. I couldn't work out if it was spider webs or some sort of plant matter (possibly a mixture of both) but it doesn't really matter I guess as whatever it was, it made some lovely photographs.
Bark is always fun to photograph. I find that I notice how awesome tree bark is much more when I'm out with my camera than I do generally. And I think that's a shame really because it's quite pretty and deserves to be noticed.
Of course any kind of moss always makes good photos. The first one particularly because it was on a really textured bit of bark.
The final image in this section has been rotated, I think it worked so much better this way around.
Berries
Pixie is obsessed with blackberries at the minute, so at some point soon we will have to go picking them. But for now, we settled for taking photos of them instead!
Water Droplets
I really love taking photos of drops of water and it's so much easier with a macro lens! There's just something about them that I think looks really pretty in an image.
I love this slightly wider shot the most where you can see more of the shape of the leaf.
Other Plants
So I have no idea what these plants are called but I had fun taking photos of them. These two images are of the same plant but one was dead and dried out, while the other was still growing. It was entirely accidental but the background of the dead one was all dark and moody, but there is more going on in the background of the living one and it is a lot lighter. It adds to the differing vibe of each image in a really cool way. Yey for happy accidents.
And as a colour vs monochrome comparison, here is a dried leaf. I'm definitely coming down on the side of the black and white image for this one because it just feels more dramatic, but I do really love the colour of the leaf.
Ferns
Of course, you were waiting for there to be ferns in this blog post weren't you. I'm not about to disappoint you.
While I was wandering around taking photos, Pixie came running up to me saying, 'Mama, Mama! I got some of the plants that you love!' and she had a fist full of ferns. I thought it was completely adorable that she had recognised them and brought them to me, but I also noticed how good of an image her fist full of ferns would make. So I thanked her and asked if I could take a photo. She was very good at trying to stay still while I got a picture. She is a top notch hand model, for sure. Then I had to walk around with all of those ferns in my bag for a while, obviously.
After Pixie brought me a handful of ferns to look at, I found a lovely patch of them and decided to just sit there for a bit to have a proper play with the macro lens. By using just one subject, I could really see what kind of variety I could get. In typical Misuzu fashion, I happened to choose the soggiest patch of grass possible, but I didn't realise until I was already sitting down so I just embraced it and started shooting.
The light was changing constantly, which made it even more fun. It meant that I had to really think about my settings and adjust them depending on if the sun was behind a cloud or not. Here are a few I got when the sunlight was more direct: the first one is of a fern that was on top and the second one was a little lower down so I was able to capture some shadows on it as well as sunlight.
Then I started to get in closer. As there was a bit of a breeze, it was tricky and the leaves kept going out of the focus range but I managed to get some nice images still.
I really liked this image with the leaves crossing over, and I got an even better image of that ready to share with you at the end of this section. But I quite like this close in shot, it's almost like the leaves are holding hands or something. Then I started to really play with the depth of field, like in the second image.
I sat there for quite a while trying out different angles and perspectives and got some images that I really really like. I find it fascinating just how little is actually in focus when you shoot across something like this.
Finally, a colour versus monochrome comparison of the little hand-holdy fern... I think this is my favourite fern shot from that day.
Shield Bug
And to finish up this post, here is a little shield bug that Pixie was playing with for a while. I'd put my camera away at this point but decided that it was super important that I try to get a photo of this little guy for her. It was difficult to capture due to the shallow depth of field with him moving around and Pixie moving around, but I'm pleased that I managed to get one shot at least!
That's all from me for today. Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday on Friday, and a special thank you to Dave for the perfect birthday present that made this post possible!
Until next Monday,
Misuzu x
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