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What is Macro Photography?
If you have been interested in photography for more than a day you have heard the phrase “Macro Photography”. It
seems to be a title thrown around the photographic arena along with “Portrait”, “Nature”, and the many other
generic groupings that we use to try keep organized. Defining Macro photography can be as easy or difficult
as you wish to make it. Often when some body mentions macro photography, the first thought in your mind is
that of the flower. Macro photography, however, in is true definition is more than flowers. It is more than
just taking pictures of “things” up close. Webster dictionary defines “Macro” as “being large, exceptionally
prominent”, and even though you can make a case that a researcher taking pictures of single cell bacteria
through a microscope is participating in macro photography, it is the photographers desire to portray a
subject as “exceptionally prominent” that makes a “Macro” photograph appealing.
The actual practice of macro photography is much the same as trying to define it, you can make it as easy or as
difficult as you desire. I remember as a young photographer, I had seen a show on the PBS channel about the
photographers behind the National Geographic magazine. There on the show was a gentleman taking pictures of plants
in a rain forest, some place far from where I was living. The TV show would display a vibrant, exotic flower embedded
in a soft pillow of green foliage, and then it would fade to the photographer standing over the plant with an
impressive large format camera, a tripod weighed down with sandbags to prevent movement, and several lights on
a custom built stand positioned just inches from the bloom. I am not sure which I was more impressed with the
photographs or the camera, but I was convinced that I needed a large format camera so that I too could produce
such impressive photographs. So I began the hunt for a good large format camera with all the accessories, only
to find that the only large format camera I could afford on a high school budget was a simple “do it your self
kit” that really only contained bellows, a few screws and an elaborate blue print for all the wood parts.
I think the various unfinished parts still reserve a place of honor in the attic, for in reality unless you have
the backing of a magazine like national geographic, you can produce great macro photographs, with some very
basic equipment.
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