Zooming In On Macro Photography
One of the most striking tools in my arsenal!
Welcome to a photo essay for all subscribers! This one features macro photography from a wide variety of photo shoots. Next Tuesday, paid subscribers will receive a recipe for olive oil plum cake. As always, check out my past posts here and learn more about my day job here. Thanks for reading!
Over the last few months, I’ve been on a mission to dedicate time to creating for the sake of creating. It feels all-at-once incredibly privileged and wildly dangerous to do that when you’re freelancing: drawing a line in the sand to divide your time between work for work and work for passion is never easy. It’s also never as important as it is when you’re bogged down by lots and lots of client work, as lucky as it may be to have that work.
Anyway, existential freelance ponderings aside, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio with some produce and my own thoughts, letting the shot list unfold naturally instead of planning heavily. The result of those hours are lots of photos that have reminded me of why I love doing what I do, and many of those photos happen to be what we in the biz call macro photography.
Macro photography is any photograph that showcases the subject in a larger-than-life (macro!) approach. Whether you’re zooming in on a plate of crackers so it fills the frame or highlighting the individual petals of a flower, macro photography is a great love of mine first and foremost because of the way it captures texture and detail on a subject.
I think I love this style of photography because it is often the simplest: you have your subject, of course, and your background. Sometimes, even the background is hidden. There’s no props to hide behind, no precious linen draped just so. It’s just the viewer and the subject, in intimate proximity to each other, every detail on display, whether flattering or flawed.
I wanted to share a selection of macro photography here because it’s been something that has resonated with my audience on Instagram lately. Maybe it’s because we’re living in a moment where everything feels splintered and strange and just as likely to be a product of AI rather than our own imagination. Maybe it’s because we’re all hungry for the harsh relief of the summer sun. Maybe I’m totally off, and it’s just the pretty colors that are drawing peoples’ eyes.
So, what do YOU think, Substack? Are you as obsessed as I am?
See you back here on Tuesday for cake!