Macro Photography Photo Workshop

Chapter 9. PEOPLE

Taking a Closer Look at Eyes

Macro-Inspired Portraiture

Spending day in, day out on your knees in front of flowers or running after insects is all good and well, but any good storyteller can tell you that to really connect with your audience, you have to involve people. Isn't experimentation and an attempt at capturing the unique what photography is all about? Of course it is, so consider how you can capture people with macro photography tricks!

The traditional way of doing macro photography with people is to take a closer look at the body parts that display a great amount of detail or the interaction of body and clothing, like in 9-1.

Figure 9.1. ABOUT THIS PHOTO Less is more — sometimes photos become more interesting the less you show. Taken with a Sigma 70-200 f2/8 lens. 1/3200 sec., f/2.8 at ISO 100.

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT EYES

Eyes are an excellent choice for study, because they are thought of as the "window to the soul" (see 9-2). In addition, people's eyes are as different as fingerprints. So much so, in fact, that eyes are used in biometrics to discriminate between people. The strong uniqueness of eyes, the fact that eyes are symbolic of vision, and therefore closely related to photography itself, and finally because eyes are exciting to explore and interesting to look at, make them a natural subject for macro photography.

Figure 9.2. ABOUT THIS PHOTO Through the ...