Project: Red

Well, it’s that time again — time for my monthly photo project. I really thought I was going to be late with this one and come up with a lame excuse as to why I didn’t really have to do it and then stop the photo project series completely. But, as luck would have it, things just worked in my favor and I was able to take some wonderful pictures for this month’s project.

I picked the theme for the silly fact that it’s Valentine’s day.  Yeah, I wasn’t too creative with my theme selection.  When I first started thinking about this month’s project, I figured I would simply get some red flowers and go to town on them (photographically, that is).  But I decided to add a twists.  A while ago I was browsing the interwebs and came across the idea of using a standard lens as a macro lens by simply turning it around. This month’s project would be a perfect opportunity to try this interesting technique out.

At first, it took some time to figure out the exposure and how I was going to get the focus I wanted.  Focusing a reverse lens macro is much like focusing a LensBaby — it takes a special touch and a lot of patience.  Once I got rolling, it was a lot of fun to explore those miniature roses in macro.  I was blown away by the intricate details that are there if you just look close enough.

The lighting was all done naturally — I simply had the flowers in direct sunlight.  By moving myself and the flowers, I was able to get a wide range of light and shadow options.  I could have probably used some reflectors to soften the light up a bit, but for most shots, that wasn’t necessary.

All of these shots are hand-held.  Because the lens isn’t actually attached to the camera, you really have to hand-hold the whole deal.  Also, I think a tripod would have been too limiting.  I was constantly moving around looking for various angles and a tripod would have made it too much work.  There were definitely times where I wanted a tripod, but I made do without one.

You can view the full set of images from this project on my Flickr page.