Week 10 - Close Up
Finally, the close up/macro week has arrived…
Ever since the beginning of my interest in photography, I have always really enjoyed macro images. I love being able to turn ordinary objects into very interesting subjects. I have been thinking of the kind of picture I wanted to do for this week since before even starting the first week.
I was looking at every single item in my house, putting it close to my face to try to imagine what it would look like through the macro lens. At the same time, trying to decide how hardcore I wanted to go. Focus stacking versus not focus stacking. I was also trying to think back to the pictures I had taken years ago that I really liked. I remember one that was some leaves with morning dew on them, and I just loved how the water droplets looked, but I remember having some technical issues with focus stacking.
In steps the legendary YouTuber Lee Hall. If you haven’t checked out his channel and have a feigning interest in Macro photography, I can’t recommend it enough. I happened to see a video where he was taking pictures of dandelion seeds with water droplets on them. The subject was so ordinary, but the result was so ethereal. The pictures just absolutely fascinated me. Not only that, the setup looked so simple. I was hooked, I wanted to use this as an inspiration.
I do realize that this makes the second week where I got inspiration from someone instead of coming up with the original idea myself. I was going back and forth on this, but ultimately, it is keeping me consistent with my photography and keeping me behind my camera. With that in mind, I am perfectly fine with using inspiration wherever it comes from.
All I had to do was get a dandelion seed…oh wait a minute…it is March and we are still getting snow every now and then. This might be an issue. Time to improvise!
I still wanted to stay with the water droplet idea so I was trying to think of objects that would be up to the task. I remembered seeing some macro photography that utilized thin wire, so I wondered if this would work. A quick trip to the hardware store, and I had some copper and aluminum wire to try out.
I set everything up on the dining room table. My first attempt I filled a shallow bowl with water, and used some clay to hold the wire at the right level. This didn't work very well, however. The water caused the reflections of the light to not be very even as well as not hiding the clay whatsoever that was holding up the copper wire. I kept changing my angle to try to hide the clay, but it was just impossible. I swapped to a water and milk mix, and this was exactly what was needed. It was opaque enough to hide the clay and it also provided a better reflective surface to bounce the lights off of.
The next challenge was how to get the water drops onto the copper wire. I have to admit, this was way more difficult than I thought it was going to be. The initial thing I wanted was to have the water droplet sitting on top of the “seat” I made for it with the copper wire. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get the water drop to sit on top, it always fell through and hung down. In the end, I just rolled with it.
Here is a behind the scenes picture of what the setup looked like.
I tried many color combinations until I got the finished image, as well as trying many different copper wire configurations. In the end, this is 100% my favorite image to date of the weekly challenges. That being said, it isn’t perfect. I couldn’t get the copper wire to be perfectly curved, so it looks a little rough. I will absolutely be redoing this exact photoshoot when I can get my hands on some dandelion seeds
I hope you enjoy the final result as much as I do.
