Macro Photography - The Fine Art Department of Photography

I've heard many photographers over the years say that they love fine art photography, yet never really try their hand at macro photography. There really is very little use for macro photography except for a purely artistic purpose. Landscape photography in it's finest forms is art, portraiture is art, but they all have more than one purpose: they can either be a family memory of a vacation, a snapshot in time of a person, or fine art.


But macro photography exists for the simple purpose of elevating the mundane to something more.  Whether you are looking at a daisy, a mushroom or a coffee bean, taking it to the extreme close up shows all the detail that you don't normally see. It's an opportunity to look at things  from a bug's-eye perspective, a fun usage of time...

To try your hand at it, you'll have to take your camera out of automatic, you'll like the results better. Try this for a project: go out in bright sunlight and find a flower or something else interesting. Set your ISO to 100, because the lower the ISO the clearer the image in terms of grain, set the shutter to somewhere around 1/800 and the f-stop to f-5.

Focus on the center part of the item you are photographing, because that will be the part most in focus, allowing the outer edges to feather out of focus a little. Play with the settings, and see what comes out of it.

Photography is about connecting..

Portrait photography is about making connections. The saying that it's not what you know but who you know applies here, but not in the standard way. In this case, it is more about how to connect with your subject in a way that makes them feel welcomed, respected and appreciated. After all, they are spending their hard-earned cash in your studio!

This becomes a challenge sometimes though, as most of us are used to looking at ourselves in the mirror. This is exactly the opposite of what we see in our own photograph. So the perspective is immediately off, and we feel uncomfortable looking at the photos.

The photographer's duty is to put you at ease, yes, I've said it before. But really, it is, and your job is to tell the photographer what you don't like about yourself, and what you do. When was the best picture ever taken of you? Why did you like it? If you can communicate at least some of these things to your photographer, you'll end up with a great portrait. You may not like that you've gotten older, or fatter, or thinner or whatever, but you will appreciate that the best portrait of you is still pretty darn good.

At the end of the day, isn't that the point?

Real Estate Photos

I'll admit it - I love cruising through real estate listings, even though we're not in the market. I like looking at the pictures. I'm a simple person, but I have to be honest -some of the photos I have seen posted with the home listings are horrible!

They look like something my twins could have taken in the dark.

To be fair, I am fairly certain that in most cases, they were quick shots to have something for prospective customers to look at in the listing, but I have to ask if the thought ever occurred to have a photographer swing by and take a few shots with a more critical eye. I cannot possibly be the only simple person out there who really likes looking at pictures! I may be more obsessed with pictures than the average person, but I know lots of people who love pictures, and say that they are more inclined to purchase or think about purchasing something where the pictures look good.

I do not think that real estate is much different.

Just for the sake of example, I took a few pictures of a house that is on the market, some good, some bad - deliberately - to illustrate the point.

The left one is obviously under exposed, and doesn't do much to help the viewer see how big and beautiful the yard really is. The picture on the right shows the nice pool, but adds the details of the stairway leading to the back half of the yard, shows the shed that is in nice shape(at least from a distance), and the retaining wall detail.

The one on the right acts as a teaser, and shows that the yard is more than just a pool with a deck, and does it in one shot instead of three - giving the viewer context as well. The one on the left says that it has a pool and that whoever took the picture needed glasses to see that it sucked.

If you saw these pictures in different listings, which would you be more inclined to look at?