A Whole New World!

My Macro Lens arrived today ....

Images: Yucca Plant Trunk, Kale, Buttercup, dry Moss

The World stopped still - thoroughly immersive!

Today was my first real go at Macro Photography. I love how absorbing and entrancing it is. You really do have to slow things down big time, be in the moment and focus. Discovering new and tiny details that would ordinarily be overlooked or not seen so easily by the naked eye is utterly thrilling. My desire to learn and progress is strong, but I am very aware I have very much to learn, which leaves me excited, bewildered and somewhat lost.

So many thoughts and questions are swimming around in my head. Do I have the right lens, should I even be doing this given I wear vari-vision spectacles, will my back hold out, will composition need to give way to angle to ensure more is in focus, will I be forever chasing tiny little insects around the garden, who can I turn to for advice, given I know no Macro Photographers!

Although, being a lover of texture, shape and form, I rather do suspect that if I can achieve half-decent results, Macro Photography, and the World I discover through it, will steal my Heart.

... the day after my Macro Lens arrived

“Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.” — Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

The sparsity of a Winter Garden led me to capture things close-up in January and February when photographing Brigitte's garden. Utilising a Macro filter on the front of the lens, enabled me to achieve half-decent Macro [close-up] captures. In February, when in Brigitte's garden again, my much loved 85mm Portrait lens worked intermittently, so it seemed appropriate to invest in a lens with Macro functionality, so yesterday after purchasing the Canon Pro Series Prime 100mm Macro f2.8, revered for Portrait and Macro Photography, I was knee deep in capturing, close-up, Nature in my garden.

Indeed, I thoroughly enjoyed myself yesterday. Having to slow things down and be in the moment is what I relish during a couple's portrait session on their Wedding Day, and whilst I was thrilled at seeing a tiny new World, yesterday helped me to appreciate firsthand that the universally recognised aesthetic of Macro photography requires a certain approach, which is quite different to the approach I will need to take to achieve Floral Art, which was a decision I came to at the end of 2021.