Macro Photography A tiny world made huge
#1) STRONG FOCAL POINT Make it clear and place it slightly off center #2) RULE OF THIRDS Do NOT place subject in the center #3) HORIZON LINE High is intimate, low is airy #4) LEADING LINES leads the eye across the photo #5) ANGLES Use interesting or unexpected angles #6) FILL THE LENS Move in close and fill your picture
#7) NATURAL FRAME Foreground object frames the subject #8) ODD NUMBERS are interesting #9) BACKGROUNDS Not cluttered, Out of focus, Add to the story #10) TRIANGLES Can negate the odd number rule and the Rule of Thirds because they keep the eye moving #11) Depth of Field Create a Zone of Sharpness
ALL included photos are from GHS students. Get some good ones yourself and I will add them to this presentation for next semester's students! The keys to good Macro photos are: 1) getting down to the level of your subject and filling the lens with your subject 2) insuring that your lighting is perfect 3) creating depth of field, sometimes to the extreme 4) taking MANY photos of each subject with slightly different light, background, angle, etc. 5) Do NOT use logos or brands of products 6) Take a spray bottle of water and a sheet of paper with you
Thinking outside the proverbial box is essential to Macro photography success. You must look for opportunities where you may never have looked before.
A necessity in shooting good Macro photos is to have the correct lighting.
Macro basically means that you are making something bigger than life sized, and the smaller the object, the more impressive the photo can be. Getting the fine details is essential!
Do not use fake things for subjects instead of real ones, such as a fake flower, because up-close it will never pass for real.
Still Life is good for beginning investigating Macro photography. Make sure that you have ZERO clutter in your background and that your objects are dust and dirt free.
Using a light box is a good choice for Macro Still Life photos because the light can be controlled, and the surrounding is all the same color and texture.
Super crisp edges are essential to good Macro photo subjects, otherwise they look fuzzy and out of focus. Hyper-clear focus is necessary.
The closer you get, the blurrier the background becomes.
The color and clarity are important, but getting the details you cannot or do not normally notice with the naked eye is the essence of Macro photography, and good lighting is therefore absolutely critical.
Taking a background with you is crucial for most natural Macro photography opportunities, as is a spray bottle of water. Take a blue cloth, a piece of colored paper, a tissue, or some other "background" that is CONTRASTING and you can easily carry.
A steady hand, a tripod, beanbag, or something that will hold your camera steady is another necessity for good Macro photos. Even the slightest shiver when this close to a subject will result in blurry photos, and BLURRY DOES NOT COUNT.
Using a slightly slower shutter speed is something to try for the background blur, but there again, it is essential to have a very steady camera.
Even in Macro photos though, DO NOT FORGET the rules for GOOD COMPOSITION still apply.
Your Assignment Make a PowerPoint of at least 25 different Macro photographs. Put each on a slide in order of how you rank them from best as 1 to worst as 25. ONLY THE TOP TEN MUST BE EDITED IN PHOTOSHOP and have their originals in the presentation with the edited version. Blurry does not count - throw it out. DO NOT take photos of the LABELS, NAMES, or LOGOS on things - they are distracting and you are not yet getting paid to create an ad for a product. Write a 3 paragraph explanatory essay in which you explain how you made decisions about how to photograph the objects, your discoveries about the process, how you lit objects, and so forth. Paragraphs should have an opening sentence, 3 sentences describing your three points, and a closing sentence stating your final conclusion. Use "because" to add complexity to your sentences. 200 points