Fleur d'Leigh

Chris brought flowers home yesterday and so this afternoon I decided to do some photography. I put them up on the kitchen counter and used window light coming from my right to illuminate them. A PhotoFlex diffusion disk/translucent reflector softened the light a bit. I used a 50mm lens and an extension tube, the lens set at f/1.8 for minimum depth of field. Lovely colors. Wonderful guy for bringing me flowers! ©Carol Leigh

A new day, a new year . . .

HAPPY NEW YEAR! May it exceed our expectations. ©Carol Leigh

Pinheads

I am ATTEMPTING to de-clutter my studio. (And my head, but that ain't gonna happen.) And in the process I came upon a box of pins. Hmmmm . . . I put a piece of red construction paper on a styrofoam block and held it in place with a couple of thumbtacks. I then arranged the straight pins in a sort of curving line. Using a 50mm lens and a 12mm extension tube, I focused on the first pin. I selected an aperture of f/1.8 for minimum depth of field and here's what I got. Fun stuff! ©Carol Leigh

Spicy photography

Yesterday morning, while grating fresh nutmeg (thank you, Jan), I was struck by how pretty the inside of a nutmeg "seed" looked. Who knew?! ©Carol Leigh

Wax on, wax off . . .

I went back to the waxed paper this afternoon. The possibilities are endless. ©Carol Leigh

Waxed paper

Lit from behind. Woo hoo. Too much fun. ©Carol Leigh

Things that fall out of books

I found them in Santa Fe, stuck them into a book to dry, then rediscovered them yesterday. Aspen leaves. Reminders of fall in other places. I took a simple photograph. Very shallow depth of field so that just the middle of the leaf, where it meets (becomes) the stem is in focus. Meanwhile, we have 30mph winds and rain and hail and one rumble of thunder which sent the cat under the bed for hours. ©Carol Leigh

Fern close-up

Yesterday I brought inside a fern frond to photograph. Well, it looked better outside than it did when I began examining it up close inside. The weather's making the ferns look a bit weathered and tattered, and not in an "artsy" sort of way. So I zoomed in tightly to capture just a bit of it. I used a 50mm lens and a 35mm extension tube because that's what was on the camera. Usually I use this lens/XT combo to take shallow depth-of-field photos, but this time I set the aperture for f/11 to make sure everything was sharp. During the 1.3-second exposure, I waved around some brown leaves in the background to add color and shadowing. One light from the right lighted the fern, as well as track lights from above. ©Carol Leigh

Last of the spiderweb photos

The spiderweb is rather tattered and torn now. I couldn't even find it at first this morning. I misted it and it showed up nicely, but it's so windy that the droplets evaporate quickly. I used a 50mm lens with a 35mm extension tube to see what I could come up with. This is one of the best of the bunch. It's not great, but I do love the softness and the interesting colors in the background. Because of its location, I can't photograph the web straight on; I have to come at it either from a sharp angle or shoot directly at the edge of it, which is what you see here -- the edge of the web -- kind of like looking at the edge of a nebula through a telescope.

And isn't that what's great about photographing nature? No matter what we see, there's always something bigger out there, but constructed in a similar manner. We can see a tree in the veins of a leaf. A grand canyon in a stream bed. The edge of the universe in the edge of a spiderweb.

Ha! What if our Earth is just something wrapped and cocooned in a web, a little morsel waiting to be eaten by some giant cosmic spider? Oh, the joke's on us . . . ©Carol Leigh

Another chance

This morning, guess what? The spiderweb was still there, even though it has rained a lot since Thursday. Okay. This time I'm more prepared. I put my 100mm macro lens and an extension tube (can't remember which one right now) on a tripod and attach a cable release. I also take with me a flashlight and a little spray bottle of water (breezes have evaporated most of the water droplets, so I replenished them). I'm much more prepared. It's kind of windy, however, forcing me to use higher ISO settings than I would like.

And here's where "live view" is amazing. I can focus on a water droplet and then, looking at my LCD screen "live," click the focus magnification button once for 5X magnification and then can click again if I wish for 10X magnification. I can stand back, look at the viewfinder, and immediately see if the droplet is sharp or not. Alas, the breeze is shaking things all over the place . . .

I take some "regular" images and then, just because I can, I turn on the flashlight and illuminate the wood behind the web. Not the web itself, necessarily (the droplets are so tiny they don't show up well when lighted), just the background. The warm tungsten light from the flashlight turns things an orange color, which is fine with me. Again, "live view" lets me stand back, wave the flashlight around, and I can just look at the LCD screen to see when the effect is just right — I don't have to keep my eye pressed to the viewfinder.

Then I look at the edge of the web. Gasp. Wow. All those little droplets all lined up. And all that out-of-focusness right behind them. Amazing.

You know what else is amazing? I have to practically WADE through robins to get to the "decklet" where the spiderweb is. I've never seen so many in the back yard — maybe 30 of them. They flutter off, but then return when they see I'm ignoring them. The red-shafted flickers (three of them) return as well. So do the Steller jays. Crows begin screeching and juncos begin "tsk-tsking" and the next thing I know a hawk flies out of a tree, followed by several cranky crows. It's a veritable ornithological extravaganzo!

I have been up working on photography in one form or another since 1 this morning. (Did you see the photomontages I made?) I'm exhausted but exhilarated. Wishing you the same exhilaration (without the exhaustion) today! ©Carol Leigh

Sunrise

This is what I love about photography: surprise. We're getting ready to go into Newport to run our usual Thursday errands, but first, I see there's dew all over everything in the back yard. Hmmmm . . . Maybe something good to shoot? I grab a camera with the lens that's on it — an 18-55mm — and begin looking and shooting, sort of "warming up." Nothing's happening. And that's when I see the spider web. Adrenaline rush! But this lens won't let me move in close enough. (The background is really busy and I need to come in super close so that it will blur out.)

Back in the house. I grab my 50mm lens and a 35mm extension tube. Why? The macro lens is on another camera on another tripod and damn it! I'm in a hurry! I choose the 50mm lens because it opens way up to f/1.8. The fat extension tube will give me magnification. How much? Don't know. Don't care. Gotta move fast.

Back outside. Web's still there. But the dew drops are evaporating quickly. It's becoming breezy. I move in as closely as I can without becoming a feast for some lucky spider. The sun's rising fast, light/shadow/light/shadow through the trees in the distance.

It's difficult to focus on something using a combination of an aperture of f/1.8 (super wide open, very shallow depth of field) and using an extension tube. Especially hand-held. And these photos reflect that. They're not all that great. But you know what I love? Look at how WEIRD the spiderweb looks! Isn't that incredible? I love the distortion shallow depth of field gave me.

And this is for Linda, who was frustrated with her f/1.4 lens/25mm extension tube combo yesterday. Often the key is to work WITH the unique characteristics of your lens/extension tube combo, not try to force it. The beauty of your lens is shallow DOF. Move in close on just one little focal point and let everything else go absolutely wacko around it! Not every photo you take will be a winner. So what? The beauty of digital is that we can play with this stuff, JUST TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

As a result of shooting this spiderweb, I had the joy of the bizarreness, the strangeness, the uniqueness of seeing something completely differently. Yes, there's lens flare. Yes, there's green stuff on the right from the trees. And I'm showing these pictures even though they're definitely not my best because THIS is what I love about photography. The joy of seeing. The fun of experimenting. The amazement at what we see when we just let go, when we don't feel compelled to be perfect.

Sometimes we shoot simply for the joy of it. ©Carol Leigh

Worcestershire sauce

I am STILL working on my upcoming macro class and so have close-up shots like these on my brain. My problem is that I see a photo and think, "Yeah, this would be good to add to the program, too" and off I go. I can't seem to say "enough," and I want to offer so much in the class that it makes me nuts. Okay, even more nuts. Tomorrow morning the final presentation gets locked into place and maybe things will settle down a bit. Ha! Anyway, this is an old weathered Worcestershire bottle that has a beautiful iridescence to it. And nope, it won't be part of the macro class program. The line has officially been drawn. ©Carol Leigh

Japanese anemone

We've got Japanese anemones blooming out front right now, pink ones and these white ones. I love the light, airy, ballerina-esque look of them. I photographed these using a 100mm lens at an aperture of f/16 for decent depth of field. ©Carol Leigh

I'll be showing these shots and a lot more in my upcoming macro class in Castro Valley, California. Have you registered yet? It's a fun and informative day. Call the Castro Valley Adult School at (510) 886-1000 to register. The fee for the day is $89.

Objectivity . . . or lack thereof

In my online classes I spend a fair amount of time providing what I hope are thoughtful, gentle, and honest critiques of my students' work. But it's sure tough to be just as honest with oneself!

In my heart I know that these are not some of the best photos I've taken, but TODAY they are quite appealing to me. I like them even though I know they're flawed. Tomorrow I may question my thought process, but today, they're okay.

They represent that I'm experimenting with various backgrounds and lighting situations. They represent growth. They represent the joy I find in photography, in seeing things in a slightly different way. Tomorrow I may toss 'em all. But today? It's been a good day. Know what I mean? ©Carol Leigh

Queen Anne's lace

A few days ago I picked a Queen Anne's lace flower, put it in a bottle of water, took a few photos and then walked away. I went into the studio this evening thinking I'd find a flower all wilted and bent over and yucky. But nope, it's still looking good, so I took a few more.

This shot had a light and airy feeling to begin with, but I enhanced the lightness in Photoshop to reflect not only how the flower looked, but how I felt about it ("It's alive! It's alive, I say!")

Lens? 100mm macro lens at f/2.8 for minimal depth of field. ©Carol Leigh

A walk around the block . . .

Queen Anne's lace is blooming all over the place right now, and so I picked one and brought it home this morning to shoot. I used a flashlight to lighten up the background behind the flower and, with a 100mm macro lens set at f/2.8, reduced the depth of field (the amount of focus from front to back) to next to nothing.

These are deceptively difficult flowers to shoot — they look better from a distance than they do up really, really close. But then don't we all? ©Carol Leigh

Optical illusion

The back side of this leaf is extremely three-dimensional -- the veins stood up and way away from the plane of the leaf. I lighted the leaf from the side to emphasize the amount of depth the leaf had. But when I look at the photograph, I have to remind myself that the lighter-colored veins are much higher than the rest. In the photograph, they look lower than the rest.

I find that if I stare at the center vein, down toward the bottom, that eventually the leaf's depth is visible. But if I have trouble seeing this, I can just imagine the problems you have, not having seen the original leaf to begin with. (If you think of this shot as a topographical map, with the darker areas the valleys and the lighter-colored veins as ridges, that might help.)

I even burned in the shadowing on the right side of each vein and slightly dodged each vein so that the depth would stand out better, but I don't think it worked. Back to the drawing board. ©Carol Leigh

A walk around the block . . .

Here in the Pacific Northwest we have an obnoxious native plant called salal. It's only obnoxious when it comes up where you don't want it, otherwise, its a rather pretty, if not unruly, plant. On my walk around the block, I was noticing how much texture the fallen leaves have, and how their colors range from brown to green to gold to red. I picked up a couple, flattened them down in a phone book, and then began to shoot.

I used a 100mm macro lens and set the leaf against one of my hand-painted backgrounds for color and texture. "Set" is a misnomer. I stuck the leaf to the background paper using UHU Tack, which is the consistency of chewing gum. It peels off easily, leaving the painted background as well as the leaves pristine and ready to be used again.

It's August, but obviously fall is right around the corner. Are you ready? ©Carol Leigh

Bad photo and why it's bad . . .

Sometimes I get so carried away that I forget to think. For instance, thinking about shallow depth of field and how I like the way water droplets look in the background, all out of focus and sparkly, made me think of something else. Some of you in my class alumni group may recall the cool holographic paper that I found a couple of years ago and sent out to those of you who requested it. Remember how it created pretty multicolored sparkles in the background? Well, I figured why not use it with the dandelion puff to put sparkles behind it?

Big mistake. But why? The reason why is because I became enamored of the EFFECT rather than the overall photograph. I figured, "Cool sparkly stuff behind dandelion puff" without really thinking about why I was photographing the dandelion puff to begin with.

To make things worse, I tried to tone down the sparkles, and so I put RED sparkly netting in FRONT of the holographic paper. Sheesh. What the heck am I thinking? Here's the result. A weird photograph of a dandelion seed hanging from a dandelion puff.

And you can see that this dandelion seed is getting tired. It's "hairs" are beginning to bend in strange directions, it's about to fall off the "mother ship," and it's not really sharp. (Actually, one could say the same thing about ME, but I digress . . .)

We have to make a lot of mistakes along the way. And this is one. Of many. And it won't be the last. At least I KNOW it's a mistake! Wish I'd known it an hour or so ago . . . ©Carol Leigh

Yet more dandelions

I've got these dandelion puffs all over the studio, and even though the seeds fly off in the slightest breeze, the puffs are surprisingly sturdy. My background for these shots is a piece of brown kraft paper that I use to clean my paintbrushes, so there are splotches and blobs and stripes of various colors all over the place. Maybe not the ideal background, but it's fun to play and see what happens. I used a 100mm macro lens and extension tubes to move in close. I'll be describing and demonstrating this entire set-up in my upcoming macro class being held in Castro Valley, California on October 10th. Click the photo over on the right side for information and a registration form. It would be great if you could be there! ©Carol Leigh