More Macro & Micro

Digital original

It has been a long time since something photographic has both engaged me, and frustrated me - but macro photography has provided both. I have been spending more and more time on my knees (or lower) pushing my understanding of the process, and working out my own preferences and vision.

Digital original

The greatest question in macro photography is how to approach depth of field; in a basic sense, there are two options, more in focus, or less; whenever I can, I have been making images at both extremes, hoping to learn which I prefer. Almost all the time, I find myself gravitating to those images with shallow depth of field (as in the above two), but I find the question of where to focus so crucial when the depth of field is this shallow so important (and frustrating) that  I keep making the alternative just in case, once in a blue moon, I find a subject that better suits deep depth of field.

Digital original

I'm continually experimenting with more and more magnification; the above image of forget-me-nots combined a macro lens and several extension tubes, to move the lens into a micro lens...creating a larger magnification that life-size on the camera's sensor.