Photography can do two things that no other artistic medium can do: It can freeze motion so we are able to examine every detail in a fast-moving subject, thus revealing things that our eyes could never catch; and it can blur the same subject to express the fluidity and aesthetics of motion. When you blur a subject with a long enough shutter speed, it blends the background with a...
Low light photography requires technical discipline to get the kind of pictures you want. Obviously artistry is also part of the equation, but shooting when the light is reduced presents technical problems that can only be dealt with using technical solutions.
There are various ways that you can use to focus very close to small subjects. Here is a list of choices.
Macro Lenses. You can purchase a lens that is specifically designed to focus closely. These are called “macro” lenses, and they are available in focal lengths between 50mm and 200mm (figure A). They can also focus to infinity so you can use them for landscapes, portraits, etc., but photographers buy them primarily to use in close-up work.
One of the first techniques I learned in photography was to use long exposures at night to blur traffic lights. I liked it decades ago, and I still enjoy seeing artful streaks of light superimposed over an urban environment. You never know exactly what the resulting images will look like, and that’s part of the fun. When the background happens to striking, like the Walt Disney Theater in Los Angeles, California (#1), the combination of abstract lights and architecture makes a winning photograph.
I have spent a great deal of time and money trying to find the perfect way to travel with my gear. As I buy more lenses, and as computer technology changes, I must re-examine how I carry everything because the volume and shape of my equipment changes.
I have always found tree bark intriguing. It comes in myriad colors, patterns, designs and textures, and it reminds me of photographing abstract art. I am always looking at tree trunks and branches when I travel, and at home when I visit a botanical garden I know there will be a lot of photographic material. The abstract images you can photograph run the gamut from brilliant and saturated “works of art” to those that are much more subtle. The two images (#1 and #2) illustrate the tremendous range of subject matter available to you.
Macro photography is endlessly fascinating. It opens your eyes to a world that most people never notice. Taking photographs of small, intriguing subjects, especially in nature, can be a life-long pursuit. It’s endlessly captivating as you can see in (#1), the foot of a poison dart frog, and (#2), a close encounter with a caterpillar. Macro photography is very technical, though, and it must be approached correctly or you won’t be happy with the results.
I’m sure you have been intrigued by the rainbow colors you can see in CDs and DVDs. As a visual person, it’s hard not to be attracted to these intense, supersaturated colors. I’ve tried to photograph them but was never happy with the results until I experimented with placing drops of water on the surface of the disc. That changed everything. The colors of the CD combined with the defined shapes of the drops in amazing ways, and this was even more captivating than just seeing color in the disc.
Photography gives us the ability to freeze moments in time that are impossible for the human eye to see. The collision of a drop of water with a pool of water is an event that is intriguing to see, and without the aid of a camera and flash it would be impossible to study, appreciate and admire.
Many photographers use the term white light without knowing its precise definition in photography. After all, there are many types of lighting that we could be talking about, such as the sun, the lamps in our living room, fluorescent fixtures, open shade on an overcast day, late afternoon sunlight, a mercury vapor street lamp, or flash. Which one of these should set the standard by which we judge all other light?