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As soon as the snowdrop season is over, things get really interesting in the local forest. Liverworts, violets, wood anemones, marsh marigolds and wood sorrel offer you the whole range of a photographic paradise. Join Ralf Turtschi on his forays and benefit from his tips on macro photography.
For macro photography, you should buy a macro lens that allows you to get very close to the flowers and that can fill the image. There are different focal lengths, all of which have their advantages and disadvantages. I work with a 60 mm lens, which with a cropfactor of 1.5 is roughly equivalent to a 90 focal length on a full-frame sensor. Of course, you can also try it without a macro lens, but with a long focal length or with a mobile phone. My tips are of a creative nature that you can implement without much technical know-how. Another piece of equipment I consider essential is a bean bag. A bean bag is a cushion filled with dry cherry pits or beans that provides a stable base close to the ground. One floor higher, a gorilla tripod or a small travel tripod are also useful. The stable base is necessary because it is often too dark in the forest to be able to photograph freehand with short exposure times. You will also need a foldable and rotatable display, because you will have to operate the camera from low down. Either you lie directly on the ground, or you take pictures via the opened display. Make sure you wear appropriate clothing and good footwear to ensure stability. On steep slopes, a stick or pole provides additional security. I go for specific flowers and only carry just the equipment I need: in a small rucksack set these are: Camera without strap with macro lens, bean bag and gorilla tripod.
Nice weather brings ideal conditions because you can always shade the flowers and when it's sunny you have enough light to work with short exposure times. You need these when it is slightly windy.
There are many ways to stage flowers: isolated from the background or including the surroundings, alone or in groups. Just try out several possibilities.
Left: Group subject backlit with surroundings. Middle: Marzenbecher, detached from the surroundings. Right: Blurred flowers close to the lens result in blur. With snowdrops and snowdrops, the colour canon remains in the range of green and white.
I prefer the individual protagonists to be staged with the blur of the foreground or background. The flowers are either in the sun, in which case I try to get a dark contrast to the background. In the other case, I shade the flowers with my body and then place them in front of the sunny background.
With liverworts in forest foliage, the colours are different: from blue-purple to brown with white and yellow accents.
Cultivated flowers such as snowdrops and bluebells grow in gardens, parks or green spaces. You must not trespass into other people's gardens and take pictures. It always helps to ask. Gardens, however, are not my favourite locations because they do not provide beautiful backgrounds. Spring flowers do not grow in the intensively cultivated agricultural zone. Where else? You have no choice but to explore the area by bike or car, keep your eyes open and note the locations where you spot the little flowers. In macro photography, the small flowers captivate me more than the big flowers like daffodils or daffodils. Brightly coloured flowers like violets, liverworts, crocuses or marsh marigolds bring a completely different colour tonality than primroses or primroses with their bland yellow. Wood anemone or wood sorrel are widespread and are easily visible everywhere. I prefer sloping areas or the edge of the forest, because there the background can be better included in the picture.
On slopes, you can set flowers directly against the sky. With the right cropping, you can even catch the sun.
Marigolds
Depending on the altitude, the groupings of these flowers can last for several months. From a creative point of view, the question arises whether I can take a picture of a single flower, two, three or four together, or even a whole group. By positioning the camera, I isolate individual flowers and focus on them. I find the individual flower(s) against the blurred background a beautiful variation on macro photography.
When backlit, the sun makes the foliage glow. It is directly in front of the lens, hence the extreme blurring.
The search for "other" photos gives me the idea of including the sunset in the picture. However, the locations of the little flowers where the sun sets just behind them are not exactly common. After extensive searching, I found what I was looking for in the hilly landscape of the Hirzel area (ZH).
The camera is on the bean bag, facing directly towards the setting sun. The more open the aperture, the larger the ball of the sun.
A dialogue develops between the sun and the blossom, which absorbs the last rays of the sun.
Here I have used the open aperture to make the sun large. You can see different colours of the sun in the three pictures. If you expose normally, the sun will appear white. Only an underexposure brings out the tint.
Here the sun has already set and is hardly visible to the eye. The sensor system writes a glowing red sphere on the card. A little more development work and the macro sunset image is ready.
Liverworts
These blue to lilac early plants live in calcareous soils in the foothills of the Jura, for example in the canton of Schaffhausen. They are usually the first to stretch their hairy stems through the withered foliage in groups. Like most flowers, they orientate themselves towards the sun, so they only present their interior in frontal light. When backlit, they can only be photographed from behind. Liverworts are always in foliage, which forms a wonderful earthy backdrop to the flowers in shades of blue, purple, yellow and white.
The green blur comes from a translucent leaf in the foreground.
Even in the almost unavoidable group shots, a single little flower can be set apart. In this way it tells a story: I am an oddity!
The attraction in macro photography is the play with blur (circles of confusion). The more open the aperture, the more blurred the foreground and background become. However, an open aperture has the disadvantage that the depth of field becomes too shallow.
Macro photography is often about creating an attractive background. With the blur circles, the background suggests more than it reveals. The two little flowers in the foreground snuggle close together, they look small and fragile.
Bachnelkenwurz
You can find Bachnelkenwurz in wetlands or along streams. They are a bit inconspicuous at first - but the macro lens conjures up blossoms of great gaziness, those furry wine-red stems and blossoms, the orange capsules or the fine hairs all over the body - it's pure delight.
The sharpness in all three flower stems comes from focus stacking. The white hairs shimmer in the backlight.
Shots taken in pairs develop a brotherly synchronicity.
If you see the blossoms as protagonists, you will find variations of a special expressive dance.
Crocuses
These cultivated plants can be found in gardens, parks, cemeteries or in the wild - often in a whole sea of flowers. Here, too, I prefer backlighting, because the colours then glow especially beautifully. If you can, wait until the sun is very low on the horizon.
The challenge is to leave the flowers intact, not to trample or pull anything out. The colours are particularly vibrant when backlit.
The blurred calyxes on the left are placed very close to the lens.
If you move the camera slightly to compose the image, you will discover fantastic new worlds.
More exciting photo tips
Ralf Turtschi; Fotografie für dich; 272 pages, hardcover with adhesive binding and round spine, with over 750 photos and illustrations; price Fr. 40.- (excl. shipping/packaging); includes two vouchers, one for Fr. 30.- from Bookfactory, one for Fr. 20.- from Printolino. Self-published.
Information and orders via the webshop: www.fotografie-fuer-dich.ch or in bookshops.