Have You Tried This Macro Photography Exercise?

huge thank you to mpb for sponsoring this week's video summer has well and truly arrived isn't it beautiful [Music] so this week I'm getting back into macro photography and I'm going to try a little bit of a challenge this week this challenge has been inspired by a chat I had with a Dutch photographer called Jeanette Van Der Boon for the photographic connections podcast and when we were talking she shared with me that a number of years ago she went on a workshop when she was first beginning macro photography and the facilitator of that Workshop got all the participants to choose a spot to sit to imagine a meter square around them and suspend a select amount of time just sitting in that spot photographing whatever was around them that's exactly what I'm going to do today and I've come out to a beautiful Arboretum there are so many incredible spots that I could choose to sit and do this task at today but I've chosen this spot here because I've got these beautiful yellow flowers here along the verge of this Pond and there's a nice sort of clearing area here for me to sit as well and just relax into this challenge my I thought so I'm probably going to spend about 30 minutes sitting here today just interacting with my meter square around me and see what sort of images I'm able to come up with it's certainly a challenge because of course you cannot move you have to stay in this spot but it's also a fantastic mindful Challenge and for any of you that are watching this video who maybe don't have the ability to travel Who potentially have some health problems that prevent them from walking far or if you've just got so much time constraints that you can't go out and photograph incredible Landscapes this is something that you can do in your own garden or your local park so it's accessible to everyone so not only am I going to enjoy this task today and share with you the results that I create I'm hoping that many of you will feel inspired to give this task a go for yourself so without further Ado let's get my macro lens out sit here and see what images I can create in my meter Square today [Music] thank you [Music] so first things first I'm going to set a 30 minute timer on my phone now you don't have to do this of course you can just sit outside and just spend as much time as you want in one spot and I think probably an hour actually would be better for this but because it's a very hot day today and we've got the sun beaming down I thought it's better not to maybe sit here for too long so I'm going to sit here for half an hour and I'm literally just going to see what images I can find what I can create and what comes to me but this whole challenge is just about sitting here and just looking around my meter Square and interacting with what's here so I've got all this cut grass here which may not be particularly interesting but there might be some nice shadows and stuff here that I can do a bit of macro work with I think most of my interest is going to be around these beautiful yellow plants here and there's also some other nice things going on here as well but I'm hoping when I sit down and just relax that some bugs and insects may come in as well let's just see what happens and what appears as the next half an hour unfolds I thought it would take me a little while to find images but straight away I began photographing the yellow flowers foreign macro is it allows you to see details that I cannot such as these beautiful hair-like structures at the foot of the flower as soon as I created these images I began to hear a buzzing sound and managed to photograph my first insects the first image I created was this one here I couldn't quite believe my luck I'd never photographed a fly in Flight before [Music] he then landed on one of the yellow flowers and I spent a few minutes photographing it here [Music] foreign I think the first thing I'm noticing about this task is The Sounds you know when you're rushing around sometimes trying to get images and you're walking around particularly you've not just got the noise of nature around you but you also have the noise of your Footprints of your bag rustling of your clothes rustling camera fairing or photographs but when you're actually just sitting in one place because you're not moving and you've not got all these other noises going on around you all you hear is nature and particularly in the summer as I'm sure you can hear the bird song is Beautiful and that's actually what I'm noticing more than anything is the bird song and because I'm noticing the birds and I'm then seeing the birds putting around around me which is lovely and as you've just seen I've just been photographing a hoverfly I believe it is I got one image of it in mid-air moving its wings so fast you couldn't see it in the image but that's an image I've never taken before I've never taken a fly flying before which I thought was quite cool and then I've been taking various images of it on on the flowers which was really nice but I could hear it it's hearing the insects when you actually stopped not doing anything you hear them which makes them a lot easier a lot easier to find and photograph so that's my initial thoughts of this it's really nice it's different it's a different way of interacting with the world and it's really really enjoyable now that I'd photographed what initially spoke to me I wanted to see what I could create using some of the more common subjects such as grass this is where the imagery got really exciting and when I was able to experiment more with the artistic side of Photography it's funny when you come to something like this you naturally feel drawn to I guess what I'd say is is the obvious thing so like the flowers and the little hoverflies but actually what's surrounding those flowers so the grasses for instance and the fresh growth is actually making for me personally more interesting images because I'm getting some lovely abstract images where I'm able to through the the macro style I'm able to get some very small bits of the image and focus with the beautiful blurring of all the other foliage behind it some cases is giving it like a nice bokeh style but also just that abstract nature of the imagery it really does show that you know it's just grass just grass which is something that is accessible to probably nearly all of us and yet you can just sit here and get these gorgeous abstract images incorporating the grass and it is just so so beautiful it's just like playing around I'm literally just moving my camera around to various different things and just seeing how they frame up against all the other foliage around it and just seeing what sort of images come out of it beautiful I say it all the time there's photographic opportunities everywhere and this little exercise is certainly showcasing that I made countless images of the grass in fact more than any other subject the first image here I love many would argue that the yellow blocked is a distraction but I personally really like it [Music] thank you I then Incorporated the grass around some of the other plant life to add some more interest foreign lastly for these set of images I found another fly and was able to photograph this image here now I think now would be a really good opportunity to introduce a sponsor of today's video mpb mpb is an online platform where you can buy sell and trade in used camera gear now I've been doing photography for many years now but one thing I didn't own until very recently is a macro lens and I'm really starting to realize how much I missed out on macro photography allows you to connect with the world on a much deeper level and opens up a whole new world of photographic opportunities so if you don't currently own a macro lens or any accessories to allow you to do macro photography why not check out mpb no matter what camera make or model you have and no matter what your budget mpb will have lenses and accessories on offer that you can purchase to get involved with macro photography so why not check them out and begin your macro photography Journey today not only does it open up a whole new world of photographic opportunities but the well-being benefits of sitting in nature connecting with the world around you and being in the present moment can have so much positive benefits for your mental emotional spiritual and physical well-being back to the images now and it wasn't just a fly that I was able to see and photograph during my 30 minutes I also found this cute guy and was able to create a few images of him holding onto the grass [Music] foreign lastly before the timer went off a bee flew in and landed on one of the flowers it is always a joy to photograph these incredible creatures back hey that's half an hour already they say time flies when you're having fun I think if you asked a lot of people to sit in one spot for half an hour and just sit there and look at what was around them and take a few photographs a lot of people would really struggle with that it's like we live in this world nowadays where everything is so go go and especially maybe for those of you who live or are used to being around cities and really busy towns it's like we're just constantly on the go and it's just amazing actually how just taking this time to just sit in nature for half an hour and to just watch what goes on around you the time passes really quickly because you're not just sitting doing nothing you're sitting resting you're interacting with nature you're looking around you you're noticing these tiny little things that are going on around you that 99.99 the time you never ever see and I have thoroughly enjoyed this exercise and I think in fact I know I will definitely be doing this again even just in my garden because actually just stopping for half an hour and doing a little bit of creativity and looking at nature and getting some fresh air it's just so beautiful oh no way so every time it's like okay my half an hour is over but I have just found a spider which I did not see before why look at him [Music] what I hadn't realized until I got home was I'd actually photograph the spider eating a fly possibly the one I'd photographed earlier I couldn't quite believe it [Music] so I hope this video has inspired you in some ways and maybe given you some food for thought if you have some foliage some flowers some grass in your garden you can literally just head out for half an hour and just sit and see what you can photograph what you can see what you can discover and if you don't have a garden head down to your local park your local Woodlands wherever it may be you don't have to walk far you can literally just sit at the side of a path and just see what unfolds around you literally anybody can do this it doesn't matter where you are it doesn't even have to be in nature but of course being in nature is what I'm all about and it's what I love to encourage so no matter where you live you can do this and no matter what your physical abilities may be you can do this just find a little spot you can even drive up to a car park get out your car and sit by a Verge anybody can do this and it is so so good so next time you're out with your camera maybe if you're struggling to find the photographs you were hoping to find just sit down in one spot and just surrender to the moments listen to what's going on around you when you've not got the rustling of your clothes the rustling of your bag the firing of your camera and just listen feel and interact with the world around you see what you can see see what you can discover it's so exciting and this is something that children do regularly isn't it they kind of go on the ground and they're looking at bags they're looking at insects or picking flowers but it's something that many people lose when they become adults but actually reconnecting with that it's a very therapeutic thing to do and it just um makes all of our adult worries just float away for a little while and gives us that rest bait that mindfulness that release that rest this is creative rest resting isn't always sitting on your sofa or sleeping it can be sitting in nature and being creative whether it's photography whether it's painting whether it's poetry whether it's music whether it's cooking whether it's gardening it's all creative things so yeah amazing and thank you to Jeanette for sharing this beautiful exercise with me when we spoke for the photographic connections podcast as always I want to say a huge thank you for watching and I look forward to seeing you all again next Sunday [Music]

Channel: Kim Grant

Views: 60,697

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Id: 8om5lVOkArQ

Length: 15min 57sec (957 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 11 2023