I love it when people say that they recognised my work before they even knew it was my work! I don’t consciously follow a particular style and I certainly don’t emulate others’ work. Over time we all develop a style unique to ourselves and I applaud this because it effectively means the work is true to one’s soul.
However - I do like to break the mould now and again! So today, I decided to try something different. The. first change was that I broke away from my usual 105mm macro lens. Instead I used a 35mm prime lens with a x10 macro lens attached. The 35mm is great for large apertures which create a gorgeous soft look. You will see that I chose my focus point to be the centre of the anemone. For such a shot to work, the chosen focus point needs to be sharp - then you can allow the peripheral details to fall off softly, as is the case here. Normally I place my subject in a black box, something I have written about before, but today I left the black box on the shelf and placed my subject exposed to light on my desk. Shooting at 100 ISO I had a slow shutter speed of 1/3 of a second so in the background I moved backwards and forwards, relatively rapidly, a multi coloured tea towel to create a soft backdrop! And here is the result. It was so satisfying to create a very different result to that which I normally create.
Try taking yourself out of your comfort zone, because each time you do, you will learn something new and will push yourselves to the next level. In truth it doesn’t even matter whether you like the finished result, what matters is that you experimented and in doing so you will have learnt more about light, colour and texture - all the while learning how your camera responds to the different lights and how best to adapt with different settings.
Above all, have fun with your macro photography!
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