Macrophotography Workshop! Dawes Arboretum, September 14

A blue dasher dragonfly in its entirety may not really qualify as "macro" material, but its eyes do.

I'm giving a workshop focusing on macrophotography on Saturday, September 14, at the fabulous Dawes Arboretum near Newark. It'll start at 9 am at the Red Barn with a PowerPoint program on the nuances of imaging small things. The lushly illustrated talk will discuss equipment such as lenses, extension tubes and flash, camera settings, composition, etc. Also plenty of tips for finding COOL SUBJECTS.

The Red Barn is conveniently located in the midst of a diversity of wonderful habitat, so all we need do is walk outside the doors to quickly locate our own COOL SUBJECTS. The sprawling grounds of the Dawes Arboretum are always a treat to explore, and we'll have a blast doing just that. We'll end the day around 3 pm.

Cost is a mere $30.00. I hope you can make it. Registration is required, and to do so click RIGHT HERE.

A tiny zabulon skipper glares at the cameraman from atop the bud of a swamp thistle.

Shawnee Photography Workshop: August 23-25, 2019

Early morning fog  mists the edges of a small lake within Shawnee State Forest. Fragrant water-lily, Nymphaea odorants, blankets the water's surface.

If you've read this blog much, you've likely heard talk of the amazing Shawnee State Forest in southern Ohio's Adams and Scioto counties. Indeed, the prior post mostly deals with this place. I've been to this area a lot; it's my favorite region of the state. The biodiversity is mind-numbing, and it's all encased in exceptionally scenic habitats.

Debbie DiCarlo and I are doing one of our field-based photo workshops here on August 23-25. This is a time of riches, photographically speaking. We will also seek out some of the lesser known creatures - read on for a few examples. We've got a few spaces left, and would love to have you. All of the details are RIGHT HERE.

Shawnee and vicinity hosts a bounty of butterflies. Twenty-five species or more would not be surprising on a good day. This is a red-spotted purple, one of the showiest butterflies and one that is quite common here.

This region is botanically superb, with 1,000+ native plant species. Thus, the animal diversity is staggering. Cardinal-flower, Lobelia cardinalis, should be in good shape at the time of the workshop and it draws spicebush swallowtails (seen here) in big numbers. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are also frequent visitors. We may be able to see some very interesting "albino" cardinal-flowers as well.

A focus of this workshop will be moths and other creatures of the night. It's easy to draw moths to properly illuminated sheets, and that's what we'll do. This is an Io moth, one of many species that make for fantastic moth portraiture shots. We should see a stupefying array of moths, and learn solid techniques for photographing them, as well as interesting ways of viewing these creatures.

If you want photos that few people have, this may be the workshop for you. Part of our nocturnal pursuits will involve caterpillars and we should find many, of numerous species. Most caterpillars are nocturnally active, the better to avoid daytime predators such as birds. This is a black-spotted prominent, an utterly fantastical bag of goo. We found it on last year's Shawnee workshop, within sight of the lodge and cabins (where we stay). It was just one of many exceptionally photogenic cats that we encountered.

We also have an EXTREMELY COOL photo opportunity arranged, that will wow you and anyone you share your work with, but I'm not saying what it is for now :-)

Again, for full details and registration info, CLICK HERE.

Macro work - photographing the little stuff

There's lots of types of photography, and my bag, obviously, is natural history subjects. Even within that sphere, there is quite a range of topics: birds, bugs, plants, landscapes, etc. To cover the gamut requires multiple lenses, if you are using a DSLR. Of all the possible subjects to found in the natural world, my favorite to shoot are the little things. Macro photography is quite rewarding, at least to me, and good shots can bring to life up close and personal the wee flora and fauna that our eyes largely skip over.

 

I look at this picture and nearly cringe, thinking how far the photographic addiction has taken me. A short eight years ago, I got my first digital point & shoot, and steadfastly resolved NOT to EVER get into SLR cameras and their interchangeable lens. If things went that far, I reasoned, I would end up devoting more time to photography and less to covering ground and finding the maximum amount of COOL THINGS when afield. Well, no regrets on the burgeoning camera addiction, at least yet.

Anyway, macro photography (shooting small subjects) is often challenging and requires a good combination of gear. The rig above is the best combo I've hit on so far. The camera body is Canon's stellar 5D Mark III, and bolted to it is their superb 100 mm macro lens. That pairing is tough to beat. But one issue that oft arises when engaging in macro work is the need for flash. I've tried several rigs, and finally got the strange contraption that is wired to the camera, above. It is the Canon MT-24 EX Twin Lite flash unit, and so far I love it. The outrigger lamps at the end of the camera barrel can be rotated in any direction, or quickly unsnapped and held anywhere within the range of the power cables. This provides excellent lighting versatility in a fairly portable package.

Last Thursday, I found myself at the Lakeside Daisy State Nature Preserve in Ottawa County, camera and newfangled flash system in tow. I - duh! - wanted to test it out, and knew there'd be scores of suitably tiny subjects at the preserve. The flower above is attached to one of our rarer mints, the highly aromatic Limestone Savory, Calamintha arkansana. Those flowers are only a few millimeters across, and a soft flash allowed me to obtain a steadier image, and send some fill flash up into the flower's innards.

One of the best things about flash is that it allows you to shoot a faster shutter speed - important when photographing objects that are prone to movement. Insect photography can be highly rewarding, but it's also challenging. One must often stalk the subject for some time, and might be lucky to get a few good opportunities for a shot. When an opportunity presents itself, you don't want to miss it.

The animal above is a male Calico Pennant, Celithemis elisa, teed up on the tattered and aging receptacle of one of our rarest plants, the Lakeside Daisy, Tetraneuris herbacea. Following are a few more shots of small stuff, taken with my new rig.

Looking quite different, and arguably even more beautiful, is the female Calico Pennant.

This is a male Band-winged Meadowhawk, Sympetrum semicinctum, with its cherry-red body.

As with many dragonflies, the female Band-winged Meadowhawk is sexually dimorphic: it is visually different than the male. This individual was quite cooperative and allowed me to get right up in her grill. Gusting breezes swayed her perch however, adding to the challenge of making a crisp image.

To me, this was the most pleasing subject of the day: one of our tiniest damselflies, the Citrine Forktail, Ischnura hastata. One of these beasts measures less than an inch long, and they stay low to the ground in the vegetation. It is extremely easy to walk right through a posse of forktails and never notice them. Seen well, the animal is a thing of great beauty. This one is perched on a fairly rare plant, the Narrow-leaved Summer Bluets, Stenaria nigricans. It is consuming some tiny bug so small it is nearly invisible.

Dragonfly/Damselfly Photo Tip: Furtively and discreetly stalk your photographic prey until it catches a victim. Once settled in with a meal, damsels and dragons are less apt to flush, and often allow closer and easier approaches.

The hypnotic mass of Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, disk flowers seems to move and rotate if you stare straight at it. A good macro setup opens up worlds that would otherwise go largely unnoticed.