Macro Photography

Macro Photography 

Definition - Macro photography is taking photos of an object in incredible detail very close in order to show them in a larger than life size. This kind of perspective would not be visible to the human eye.

This type of photography requires a special lens that is made for macro photography.

Best Images 

       The images below are 'macro' photographs as they are very close-up and highly detailed. They were taken on a macro lens in the studio, therefore with studio lighting. I really enjoy this style of photography as you can get a very abstract approach whereby the object in the photograph is unclear. The first image is very obviously an eye, I love the detail that I was able to pick up in this image as you can see all of the colours in her eye and even the reflection of her eyelashes. The second image shows part of an orange but the up-close nature of the image makes it unrecognisable. This is what I enjoy about macro photography as a simple object can look completely different as we do not see these objects in this way in everyday life. 

Image 1 

Camera Settings - F/8, 1/125secs, ISO200 

        Evaluation -  Personally, I think this image is very intriguing in terms of Macro photography. I really like the in depth and invasive feel of the photo, seeing every detail of Phoebes eye can make the viewer feel as though they are actually being watched. The fine detail of the image is what makes it so spectacular, seeing every tiny bit of colour within the eye and the reflection of the eyelashes on the pupil makes you feel very close to the subject. Overall, I think this is my favourite image from my macro shoot.

        Editing - I didn't do much to this image when editing it as the detail was fine enough to start with. However I did use curves to bring the brightness down, in the original version it looks rather white and washed out, mainly due to being in the studio using studio lighting and a white background. Therefore by bringing the lower and middle part of the curve down I regained some strong colour and eliminated the 'washed out' look. 

Image 2 

Camera Settings - F/8, 1/125secs, ISO 200. 

        Evaluation - With this macro image I took a slightly different approach to the previous image. In this one I wanted to play on the abstract effect this style of photography can bring. Therefore I concentrated the camera on a small section of an orange. This picked up every little detail on the fruit that otherwise wouldn't be visible to the human eye, making it look different and strange in the photo. I like the overall effect of this photo as its more fine art and unclear as to what it portrays and may vary between peoples opinion.  

        Editing - To carry on the abstract effect of this image I firstly decided to convert the image to black and white. I did this by using the 'Black & White' tool as it allows me to alter the concentration of each colour in the image. As the image was majority orange I moved the red setting down to the darker end which made most of the photo a dark grey. I feel that from doing this I lost a little bit of detail therefore I used curves to bring this back. I brought parts of the curve down to the darker area so that the shadows of the orange would be more prominent, this resulted in a very abstract and detailed image.