We’ve had a lot of rain lately. According to the local meteorologist, this is the 5th rainiest April ever recorded for our area. And we aren’t finished yet. I woke up this morning to the sound of a summer thunderstorm rolling through, and there is more rain in the forecast for the coming week. Lucky for me, I love rain. And now that I have a macro lens, I love it even more.

Images of water droplets have always been some of my favorite macros, and I was pretty excited to get the chance to try my own hand at some rain macros. I took these one day while it was still drizzling. Next time, I’ll remember to throw on sweats that I don’t mind getting dirty before I venture out, so that I can get down even lower for a different perspective.

Speaking of perspective, I think that is my very favorite thing about macro. Through a macro lens, the world looks entirely new. Walking through our (overgrown) yard, I would never have noticed that the rain drops scattered over the grass were almost spherical. But through a macro lens, the clover looks like it has been sprinkled with jewels.

And dandelions? Did you know that dandelions fold up their fluff like tiny umbrellas when they are touched by the rain?

I remember being fascinated by tiny things when I was a child. I always had some kind of collection going of things I had found—interesting rocks, snail shells (or live snails!), empty nut shells, pretty leaves. I can remember lying on my stomach in the grass, watching the tiny parade of life that goes on under the canopy of the grass and wishing I could shrink down and go wandering around among the moss-covered rocks and violets.

I had forgotten all about how closely I used to look at the world until my own kids started bringing me their own treasures to be admired. I’m not sure at what point I got too busy to really look around me. I suspect, watching my almost-teenager, that it was around 12.

Macro photography offers us the chance to slow down and look a little closer. To see the world as we once saw it, and to see it as we never have before. There is a reason so many photographers call it “macro therapy.”

It’s been a few weeks since I posted a P52 image—we have had a lot going on, and I am behind on everything! I mentioned in my last post that, in addition to my new macro lens, I was getting some off-camera flash equipment for my birthday. Studio lighting is something that, for a long time, I had no interest in learning. It seemed way too complicated and scary, not to mention expensive! But lately I have found myself itching to stretch out of my comfort zone and learn some new skills. I’ve had a Canon Speedlight 580 EXII for a few years now, and hardly ever used it. I couldn’t seem to get results I liked, that didn’t look too “flashy.” (Probably because I didn’t practice nearly enough with it.) And studio lighting? That always brought to mind stuffy, old-school formal portraits that just aren’t something I enjoy.

But recently, I started to see images that I loved that were lit with studio lights, often just one light with a reflector. With that simple setup, photographers were achieving soft but directional light with beautiful catchlights. And I did have that Speedlight collecting dust . . .

So I looked into what I would need to move my flash off camera and into a softbox. I ended up with a heavy-duty lightstand and bracket (in case I decide to move into studio strobes one day), a Westcott 50×50 Giant Apollo softbox, and Paul C Buff Cybersync triggers, which ended up costing me about $400 from B&H Photo and Paul C Buff. (If you are interested in trying out OCF on an even smaller budget, check out the Beginner’s Lighting Kit recommended by Strobist’s David Hobby. You can get everything but the flash for about a hundred dollars, or a kit that includes a flash for less than $300!)

When my equipment came, I sat it in the corner and looked at it for several days before I got up the nerve to set it up. I went to the library and checked out Joe McNally’s Sketching Light and got online and read through Strobist’s Lighting 101. After a few days of reading everything I could get my hands on, I set up my shiny new equipment and gave it a try.

I think I’m in love.

The soft light, the crispness, the catchlights—I have a long way to go to master OCF, but I can tell already I am going to enjoy the journey!

Luckily, this week was our “Spring Break” for the Clickin Moms P52 project, and we got to choose our own theme for the week. My theme? Studio lighting! Let’s hear it for trying new things.

Continue on around our blog circle to see what Michele chose for her submission this week. Thanks for stopping by!

{Settings: Canon 5D MarkII, Canon 100 mm 2.8, ISO 200 |  f3.2 | 1/80 | ISO 200
Canon 580 EXII in Westcott 50×50 Apollo Softbox @1/8 power zoomed to 50 mm}

So I know a lot of photographers do a regular Macro Monday post, but since my first macro lens just came on Monday afternoon, I’m a little tardy to the party this week. Story of my life. But, I’ve been having so much fun playing with my new lens that I wanted to share a few shots anyway. I got the Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens as a birthday gift, and I am having a blast playing. (Happy birthday to me! Just don’t ask which birthday it is . . . )

Here is a little peek at what I’ve spent the last couple of days doing . . . wandering around the house and yard seeing what I can find to get up close and personal with. I’ve always loved other people’s macro photographs, so I’m pretty excited to be able to experiment with my own. It is a whole new way of looking at the world and it is definitely going to take some practice, but I’m already in love.

One of my favorite things about macro photography is that it takes something ordinary and makes you look closer. That top left picture? That’s the brush I scrub my cast iron pans with. Exciting, huh? But I loved the way the bristles looked through the macro lens. That little bug? No idea what it is. My daughter found it on the side of the playhouse and called me over to see it. Those thorns are on the shrubs that we planted way too close to our front porch. We need to move them, but for now we just try not to brush up against them on the way to the front door, especially if we are wearing shorts. It’s so much fun to see if I can make an everyday object into something beautiful.

And now I find myself kind of wishing for a freak April snow storm so I can try my hand at snowflakes. (Not really, but maybe just a little bit . . . )

Another nice things about the 100 mm macro is that it doubles as a nice (and super sharp!) portrait lens. This is just a snapshot that I took when I first put the lens on my camera. It was too rainy to go outside and too dark in the house to do much, but I’m too impatient to wait for the rain to stop.

Today, we had a little visitor in our front yard, and I had to run outside and get a few shots of him. I don’t think he knew quite what to make of me down in his face like that. He froze and didn’t move anything but his little forked tongue until I left!

Now I’m (im)patiently awaiting delivery of my Cybersync triggers, so I can play with my other new toy—studio lighting. I’m equal parts excited and terrified. Here’s to learning new things!

Have you learned anything new lately?
Leave a comment and tell me about it!

The prompt for this week was Centered Composition. I realized while looking through my Lightroom catalog that I don’t shoot centered compositions very often at all. I almost always follow the “Rule” of thirds, placing the subject off center in the frame. {I say “Rule” of thirds because a lot of photography rules are a lot like the Pirate Code—more like guidelines, really.} Since centered composition can be used to emphasize form, among other things, I finally settled on photographing this shell. It was handy, it sits still, and it doesn’t whine. It’s a lightning whelk from Captiva Island, our yearly getaway to the beach. I love the pattern and colors and thought a centered composition might help emphasize them.

Because I was shooting so close to the shell, I stopped down to f/7.1 to try to keep the whole end of the shell in focus. Obviously, that didn’t quite work, but I was losing light fast, so I went with what I had.

There were some amazing shots in our group this week, and they really made me rethink centered composition. I will definitely be looking out for opportunities to use centering for a stronger image in the future. In fact, last night we spent the evening outside, soaking in the beautiful spring weather (and good thing too, by this morning it was cold and raining), and I took my camera with me. Our inside/outside cat was pretty excited to have us outside to play with him, and I snapped this shot of him. I love how the centered composition emphasizes his eyes and the symmetry of his face.

{Settings for shell image: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 24-70 2.8L , ISO 1600 | f7.1 | 1/60
Camera was sitting on the table to reduce camera shake at such a low shutter
Even at 1/125, I have a little blur from camera shake in the cat image because
I was trying to snap the picture before he moved,
and didn’t have time to brace my arms.}

It’s P52 time again! This week’s theme was Negative Space.  

I love photographs that incorporate negative space, which is essentially the opposite of filling the frame. When you incorporate negative space into an image, you often leave a large area of the frame empty. That isn’t always the case, as you could fill the frame with a field of red flowers punctuated by a single white flower, and the image becomes about the white flower, using the red flowers as negative space.

While negative space is one of my favorite techniques to use in my work, to be honest, I was feeling pretty uninspired this week. I had put off the assignment until the very last day, and was determined not to miss a week, when I looked down and noticed the pattern the milk in my coffee had made on the surface. I decided that was as good as it was going to get this week, dragged a chair over by the window so I could get up high enough to get the perspective I wanted, and shot this.

I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I like it because this is my view every morning as I’m trying to drag myself up out of the depths of sleep and get motivated to start the day (have I mentioned I’m not a morning person?), and therefore it is a little slice of my life right now, in this moment. But beyond that, I’m not sure. Maybe this week I will snap out of the blahs that have had me in their grip and feel some serious inspiration!

Next on the blog circle this week is Justyna – hop on over and see her interpretation of the Negative Space theme.

It’s Friday, so you know what that means! Another installment in the P52 series for this year. Our prompt this week was Photographer’s Choice. Our assignment was not just to pick an image at random from the archives, or even to snap a current shot and call it done, it was to choose something new we wanted to try and give it a go.

As luck would have it, I had just checked out Popular Photography’s How to Photograph Everything from the library, and it is chock full of inspiration. Each little chapter/section is about a specific type of photography—still life, travel, extreme sports, underwater, night sky, weather, the list really goes on and on. I highly recommend it if you are looking for a little inspiration. My favorite part is that it gives so many details and tips for achieving the images featured in the book. I immediately knew I wanted to try a technique for faking a rainy day that is covered in the still life section.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, I love rainy days. Love them so much I kind of want to move to Oregon. Especially those perfect rainy days in the summer, when you can actually smell the rain coming long before the clouds come rolling in and a low rumble of thunder is followed by the pattering of big fat drops. Those days are my happy place. Those are the days when we have some quiet time and I get to curl up with a cup of tea and something to read.

In case you want to try this technique for yourself, I thought I’d include a pullback and a few tips.

Here is my setup—try not to be too jealous of this high-end studio space I’ve got going over here.

• That’s just a piece of glass I pulled out of a picture hanging in our living room. (It needed cleaning, anyway, so I call that multitasking, my friends.) And those Hot Chili Beans from Kroger? You should try them—they are delicious with tacos. Also, if you keep at this for an hour, the water will run off the edge of the table and you will step in it with your bare feet and wonder why there is water in the floor.
  
• Watch your reflection. I noticed right away that my reflection was going to be a problem. I moved the table around, closed some of the blinds behind me, and tried different variations of crouching and leaning to get a shot that didn’t have my black-and-white striped shirt reflecting in it. I tried a circular polarizing filter, which is often used for cutting reflections, but didn’t have much luck. I had the best results from shooting at an angle to the glass. Also, maybe don’t wear stripes.
  
• Don’t shoot wide open. Experiment with your aperture to get the right combination of in focus “raindrops” and out of focus subject. At first, I was shooting almost wide open, and found I had to close down a couple of stops to keep my scene from blurring out so much that it wasn’t recognizable.
  
• Experiment with placement of your still life objects. I think this is true of any still life shoot, but when you are going for a rainy window look, try moving your objects closer to and farther from the window to see which look you prefer. The image that was my inspiration in the book had the subjects right up against the glass, and the result was beautiful, but my scene was a little different, and I found I was more pleased with the results I got when I moved the objects farther back from the glass. I also moved things from side to side, until I like the balance of objects in the frame and the way the shadows fell.
  
• Watch the light on your raindrops. I tried shooting a few different angles to the window, and found that sidelight seemed to emphasize them the most. I also sprayed heavily across the top of the glass pane to make the water run down, rather than just spraying the whole pane. I got a more realistic rain look that way.

Next up on the blog circle this week is Kelley K. Go check out her choice for this week’s post and leave her a little love!

{Settings for the final image were Canon 5D Mark II,
Canon 24-70 2.8 L @ 70 mm | ISO 1600 | ss 1/100 | f4.5}