Occasionally I dabble in home product photography for practice and portfolio’s sake. The black background here is a black muslin that I ordered a while ago. Unfortunately, the flash did reveal a decent amount of texture within that black, however a post-processing adjustment of increasing the black levels made for a pretty easy fix.
As winter quickly approaches, my mind always drifts towards the migrant ducks that congregate near Long Beach Island in New Jersey. Some of the challenges include isolating a single bird amongst their groupings, trying to predict where the diving ducks are actually going surface, and dealing with the very slippery jetty you have to walk out on.
Quack!
I like this intimate view of the Harlequin Drake because you get a nice view of his intricate patterns, and the very comedic value of a cute duck with his mouth agape!
You wouldn’t believe the terrible condition this group of flowers was in. In fact, this particular petal was one of the few that wasn’t completely wilted. The vast majority of petals had already fallen to the ground as this photo was taken in early October and most blooming plants were WAY past their prime. I was quite surprised to stumble upon this small cluster of vivid flowers in a local park, but the overall scene was not pretty.
Positioning the tripod for a close photo was difficult. On a few early attempts, one of the tripod’s feet shook the plant during my setup process, causing most of the water droplets to fall off of the original petal I was trying to photograph. On a different attempt, I touched a petal to prevent two from intersecting…. this smudged the droplets and completely ruined the picture. I was also working against time, as bright morning sun is prone to burning dew and droplets off quickly.
It’s funny the small, yet important lessons you learn while photographing subjects like these. In this case: Handle with care, Be very mindful during tripod setup, and remember that many photographic opportunities are fleeting.
Water droplets on Flower Petal
I generally dread the onset of cold weather, because overall photographic opportunities seem to dwindle in my mind. However, I have recently delved further and further into the realm of macro photography and minimalistic foliage shots, a maturation of sorts.
This year I plan on embracing the cold a bit more, because with subject matter like frost, snow flakes, and patterned ice the possibilities are really limitless.
Frost Detail on Leaf
The above photograph was taken with my nifty new Tamron 90mm VC macro lens mounted on “old faithful”, my 18mp T2i. I set the center column of my Manfrotto 190xProB horizontal for precision low-level shooting for this photo.
Dave Blinder Nature Photography 