First try at Macro photography

I think macro photography is fascinating - for any who don't know what it is, just do a quick google image search and you'll see some amazing close-up shots, such as this one of a cat's eye. How amazing is that?! To accomplish this type of shot, there are all kinds of specialty lenses you can buy (there's one I have my eye on that's about $400, which I can't quite swing right now, much less the much higher price ones that are out there!), or you can get ring extension kits to add to an existing lens to allow focus that close up. There is a "trick" to macro photography that you can do without any of these and I've been dying to try it; I finally had time this weekend to give it a shot with some hydrangea flowers I recently received.

 So, what's the trick? You take your regular lens (in this case, I used my 50mm prime lens), and take a normal photo with it for comparison purposes. Here are a bunch of lovely hydrangea.

But what if you wanted more close-up detail of a flower? With this lens, that isn't possible; it can't focus in close enough if you move in closer. So, try this trick: detach the lens from the camera, turn it around, and hold it up against the camera backwards. You can still see through the lens to take a photo, but you can't use auto or manual focus on the lens itself. Instead, to achieve the focus that you want, you physically move back and forth to the desired point, and take the photo. It took a bit to get the hang of it, but I absolutely love the photos that resulted.

 These next two are my favorites - we are looking for a photo of mine to blow up and place above our mantel, and this one may fit the bill...

 or possibly this one.

I also did some macro photography on leaves, both on the hydrangea plant

 Note: the above photo was my submission to this week's photo project, which was "Patterns"

and another on my windowsill. This was very difficult to get the appropriate focus on, due to my leaning over my kitchen sink (yes, I could have moved the plant but then I would have lost all of the natural light coming through the window!). The lack of focus gives a very abstract quality to the photos that I enjoy!

The first test of this type of macro photography was a success, I believe - I'm looking forward to trying this with other subjects in the near future!