Macro Workshop 2010

This weekend my mom & I presented a macro workshop in the lovely heatwave, thank God for an air-conditioned lecture hall! The 1st shoot on Friday was at 33 Stellenbosch in the garden & we had all sorts of toys to shoot as usual. Saturday morning we shot at Eagle Encounters at Spier & is one of my fav shoots & played with my flashes again. I missed the afternoon shoot at Rustenberg in Rose's garden & were at Butterfly World on Sunday morning, another spot I really enjoy. Here are a few of my favs of the weekend & a little tip for any keen photographers.

Ok, now for my tip of the day. haha

These 3 shots were taken of the same butterfly at the same spot & pretty much the same composition, but a completely different feel in each of them. I wanted to use this series to show how important your BG is. So many people get caught up in the subject so much that they forget about the MOST IMPORTANT thing in a shot, the BACKGROUND!
When you're shooting something focusing on the subject you're shooting is the obvious thing to do, so take the next step & concentrate on what else you're making your viewer look at.
First off I made sure not to have any distracting elements in the BG of any of them.
The first was shot standing at the height I just happen to be & had a nice soft BG with all of the OoF greens of the plants behind. I then thought I needed something else a bit more interesting & bent my legs a bit aiming more toward the roof & had some nice backlit leaves in the BG that made some nice specular highlights. On the next one I went even lower to have the sun behind the butterfly & have a seriously contrasty shot, but keep some nice specular highlights.

I personally like the middle one the most, but might change from day to day, but I hope I've opened your eyes to look at what you're not shooting just as much as you look at what you are!

Have a look at the Workshops we present at www.nicolepalmer.co.za