Continuing the theme for Beyond Beyond
An Apple a Day (BB16)
Our assignment this time is to shoot as many apple photos as we can over the next week. Of course I started with a macro- taken with the camera on a tripod and using a long exposure, no special processing.
Expect to see a few more apple photos over the next week!
In the kitchen. . .
I am eternally grateful to my macro lens for providing me with seemingly endless photo subjects. Here’s a sample of what I found in a kitchen drawer- and on the counter. I purposely used a shallow depth of field on all- just because. . .
Seek Beauty
I rarely desaturate a photo to this degree- and I NEVER EVER use a white vignette. Never say NEVER!
I started with a Lightroom preset from Matt Kloskowski (he offers them free on his blog); this one is called Wedding Fairytale. I’ve actually used it a few times for flowers (it would be great for newborn babies too, I think); it’s a good one! I added a layer of Kim Klassen’s 1301 texture and this quote from Bill Cunningham, a street fashion photographer for the New York Times (this week’s Texture Tuesday’s challenge is to add words to our photos).
Speaking of beauty, head on over to Kim’s site for some links to beautiful textured photos; the link is at the bottom of the page.
Tiny Buds
My husband loves to plant geraniums in pots on our deck- they are colorful, they live forever, and they can take a lot of neglect. Here is a macro of some tiny geranium buds- if you look fast, they almost look like roses, don’t they?
Textured with 2 layers of Kim Klassen’s 1301 and one layer of Cora.
Mini
I wandered around outside with my macro lens today. This is a tiny detail of . . . pine needles?- some evergreen, anyway. There was enough sunshine for some great bokeh. The shallow depth of field with macro always amazes me – this was at f/10!
Woman on a Mission
For the last week, I have been obsessed with my macro lens and water drops on flowers. More specifically, I have been obsessed with capturing refracted images on waterdrops. I have had a bit of a time doing it, actually. The first two days I tried it, I all but threw up my hands in surrender- I couldn’t even get anything I wanted to appear in the drops. But I have finally had some success!
Here is my orchid plant reflected in a water drop on my jade plant. Somehow this was easy. Off camera flash helped illuminate the drops. And the photo is flipped, by the way- the refracted image is always upside down.
My next goal was to get the image to appear in more than one water drop at a time- harder! What became difficult was not getting the image to appear, but to get the drops in the right places so they were in the same focal plane. Yoiks! I ended up using drops of Karo syrup on a wilting Gerbera daisy (no daisies were harmed in the making of this photograph). I did get drops that stayed- but they were small. And in the quickly fading after dinner light, I needed a lot of flash.
The last photos were taken at f/40- just for the sake of depth of field. I know these are not ideal settings. These images are greater than life size- the real drops were very tiny. I next plan to take some photos where the flower looks more pleasing- these look to me like they’re from another planet! But that’s for another day, another week, another month . . .
Yellow Orchid
We had a wonderful week with our houseguests and dear friends, Debbie and Dale, who left Wednesday to go back to Arizona. Most mornings while they were here, they would see me dragging my tripod around while I worked on macro photography. Before they left, they gave me a beautiful orchid plant to photograph. So here it is, Debbie and Dale- I’m sure you will see it a few more times on this site! We miss you!
Beyond Beyond 12
Tint and/or type was the challenge this week- and I went with tint, specifically using the graduated filter in Lightroom to create tint presets for black and whites.
I’ve been doing a lot of macro lately; here is my original image edited in color.
I made a virtual copy, which I converted to black and white. Then I added a very slight lavender tint to a couple graduated filters which I positioned on angles in the image.
And here is my third version- a black and white conversion with yellow and lavender tinted graduated filters. Looks like sepia. . .
Not a ladybug. . .
I’ve been having fun with macros of flowers lately (ahhhh Spring!). When I took these photos of waterdrops on Gerbera daisies, I noticed a refracted image in one of the drops. No, it’s not a ladybug, it’s another daisy!
I Heart Tea
It’s more closeup shots today- these feature my heart-shaped tea infuser with one of my grandmother’s teacups. I edited both with one layer of Kim Klassen’s sybil and another of return for this week’s Texture Tuesday.
Head on over to Kim’s site to see some beautiful textured images!
itty bitty
I’m not sure what these itty bitty flowers are, but they are in a pot on our front porch. They look a LOT bigger than their actual size when shot with a macro lens.
I Spy
I found this little guy in among the leaves the other day. Spring seems to be on its way!
Produce . . .
. . . is one of the themes of my daily challenge group. I decided to take macro shots of a cucumber slice.
Then I got the idea of trying taking another series of shots showing the translucence of the slice. I have seen many photos of strawberries and other fruits suspended in a glass of sparking water- very cool! But, unfortunately, there was no sparkling water in the house. I wanted light to shine through the cucumber and was wishing I had a lightbox, when suddenly my internal light bulb went on. I DO have a lightbox- or at least my husband does.
This is the same cucumber slice used in the first photo. Can you guess what I used for a lightbox? My husband’s iPad!!! Sssshhh- don’t tell!
Subtle
Yesterday’s flower photo was pretty dramatic; today’s is subtle. They are both macro images from the same Trader Joe’s bouquet- I always get a lot of mileage out of those! This one I converted to black and white, adding a layer of Kim Klassen’s Anna texture for a bit of warmth. Happy Texture Tuesday!
melinda anderson photography 