Macro Photography is Hard... But Fun

For years with my old camera system I made extreme macro photos the old fashioned way... by holding the flash on a cable in my left hand and the camera in my right, peering through the viewfinder and slowly rocking the camera in and out of focus a mere couple of centimeters from the subject, hoping for an in focus shot (you can't use autofocus on really close macros). It's physically demanding--the only photography that makes me sweat-- and requires patience and precision. You can't use a tripod... by the time you get the camera aimed, the critter will be long gone. So it's flash and timing and a lot of patience and sweat. Most shots aren't keepers, so you have to work for it.

Now that I've moved over to Canon, two things have happened. First, my new macro lens, the EF 100mm f.2.8 L IS macro, has a lot longer working distance from the subject than my old Olympus Four Thirds macro lens. And that makes it much easier to get the animal shots.

And second, I treated myself to a Chinese copy of the Canon macro ring flash. This will be a LOT easier than holding the flash in one hand and the camera in the other... things will be a lot steadier! The critters will be photographed before they even know what's happening.

I'm really looking forward to the next few years of macro shooting!

The Duck Rule of Photography

Just like Newton had his laws of motion, photography has its rules as well. There are the Rule of Thirds, the Rule of Space, and others. Among these steadfast rules is the celebrated Duck Rule of Photography: "If you see a duck, you must shoot it."* No one who sees a duck while carrying a camera can avoid obeying this simple but powerful rule.

*Applies to geese, swans, llamas, and carousel horses as well

We saw this mother duck and her brood while walking the dogs.

A Second of Intergalactic Fame

I was delighted to find that my self portrait was licensed by the producers of the television show Cosmos. The original Cosmos with Carl Sagan was an important part of my childhood and I adored it! Now we come full circle, with my portrait appearing (albeit briefly, in a montage) in episode 9 the new Cosmos with Neil Degrasse Tyson. There are so many ways my portrait could have been used commercially, but this... this is the best possible outcome! Huzzah!

New Beginnings

They say that when one door closes, another one opens. Or you could just, you know, open the same door back up again. That's how doors work.

There aren't any doors here, just code and pixels, non-sequiturs and a brand new thing in the world...  this blog, which I hope will entertain and sometimes inform.

Hello world!