Assignment, Week 6: Macro

Theme: A Bug's Eye View

Macro photography is photography taken at extremely high resolutions. Often this is achieved by either getting up really close to your subject, or zooming in really close. Whatever the technique, macro photography has the effect of giving a distinctly different view of the world - you see the small, mundane things as humungous in size, and you see detail that could never be possible with the naked eye.

This weeks' assignment is to simply take a few macro photos (for most digital cameras, you need to activate the little flower icon on your camera. For Digital SLRs, there's no specific mode, just get as close as you can/zoom in as far as you can). A few things to keep in mind:

Depth of field: with macro images you usually have only a very small range of distances in focus, so make sure your focus is where you want it to be (you may need to aim directly at your subject first, half-press the shutter button, and then recompose)
Perspective: Remember, wide-angles and being up really close distorts images, and also gives more context background context. These can either be good or bad things, depending on the look you want - see the powerpoint for more examples.
Lighting is very important: Try utilizing room lights (a desk lamp?) to control the lighting.
Flash can be used to freeze action: Try shooting flash photos of water drops, for example.

Assignment Summary:

Upload photos here: http://photodecal.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=9106
The theme for the week is "A Bug's Eye View"