Katherine, first of all, welcome to NPN. I hope you enjoy this site ever as much as I have and find it as helpful in your photographic journey. The photographers on here I find to be quite helpful.
I’m also glad that you have an interest in macro photography. I have found it to be almost like another universe to explore. Just so much details that a macro lens can capture that our eyes can’t see in the natural world. I am always excited to bring my image up on the computer screen and stand amazed at what I see.
In photography, no matter what the genre is, it is always good to look around in the viewfinder and just decide what one wants to be the attention getter, or main subject. How much of the environment adds to the image, or should I eliminate most of the environment and go in tight on the subject are just some things good to think of as you are framing your shot.
In this image it feels like the yellow flowers in the bottom left may be the subject. If so, maybe it would improve the shot if you were to crop out some of the out of focus and brighter area to the right and top.
It is also nice to provide your camera and lens type, camera settings, etc. to help those that are going to critique your image to know how you went about taking the shot, and that helps them to provide some changes maybe to the settings for the next time to capture an even better shot. It also helps those that see a shot they like to know how you obtained it so they can learn. One of the things about macro photography that differs from another genre is what is called depth of field. In macro you will find that it is very limited when you go in close on a subject. It helps to close down the lens (higher number in the f-stop) to gain more focus around the subject.
NPN recommends that you post your image at 2000 pixel on the longest side. This one is about half that size, which makes it difficult to enlarge the image to see more details. I hope this has been somewhat helpful.
Thank you for sharing. I am looking forward to seeing more of your images. Keep shooting and sharing. If you have questions, please ask and we will try to provide an answer.
Welcome! The world of macro photography is absolutely fascinating, and the tiny things you’ll find are just riveting.
I can’t add much to Shirley’s great welcome, so I’ll just say I’m glad you’ve joined us, and am looking forward to your images and critiques.
Katherine: I don’t have much to add to Shirley’s welcome but I will offer some general suggestions. Our eyes naturally gravitate toward the brightest part of an image and in this one it is the entire right side. Since that is totally out of focus (OOF) the viewer tends to look there and get stuck. The sharply focused details on the left side are kind of lost and one almost has to make a conscious effort to look there. You might be able to make this work better for you if you flip the image horizontally and put the OOF area on the left side. In our western culture we read left to right and that deeply engrained habit affects how we view images as well. With the OOF area on the left it leads to the sharply focused details instead of trapping the eye on the right side of the frame. Hope this makes sense. Great to have you aboard and looking forward to more of your work. >=))>
Welcome to NPN Katherine. I love the variety of life on these rocks. You’ve received a lot of good advice on this image. I’m looking forward to seeing many more from you and getting your input on others images too.
Hi and welcome to NPN! Fungi and Lichens are some of my favorite subjects to photograph and it’s nice to see this. So many walk right by, not even noticing the intricate beauty. Lots of layers and detail to enjoy. That’s the draw, but also the challenge with tiny microscapes like this one. Over the years I’ve done a lot of work with lichens and mosses and creating a microscape is very like creating a larger landscape. The same principles of framing and composition apply. There is some excellent advice and insight provided by others, but I will say this - have fun with it and don’t be discouraged. It took me years to be able to see properly at this scale. Now my camera practically lives on the ground and I can more easily identify small scenes from my towering height. It’s so fun and sometimes surprising. It’s one of the most rewarding aspects of my photography and I hope to see more of your efforts.
Katherine, welcome to NPN and the amazing world of Macro photography. You’ve already been given lots of good advice, so I won’t repeat it. I will add, relative to Bill’s suggestions that you could also reduce the visual focus by burning-in the bright, OOF area in the lower right. That would let the nice arc of sharpness (including the interesting purple bit) be more visually dominant. The world of macro is all about choices that you make to control how your image will be viewed. As a self proclaimed “detail nut”, I do a lot of stacking, which is taking many “slices” that are focused in small regions and using software to put the sharp areas each slice into a single photo. I don’t know what aperture (f-stop) you used, but this view looks to be in very close, with a fairly open aperture.
