Exploring the wonders of creation through a 50mm lens...and other lenses too.

Over the past decade or so that I have been taking photography more seriously as an artistic and, dare I say, intellectual pursuit, I have tried my hand at lots of different types of images: portrait, close-up, street, black and white, wildlife, landscape, and probably a lot more. One thing I haven’t attempted, because I honestly just have not had the opportunity, is an oceanside sunset. Those scenarios don’t come along too often when you live in Oklahoma, and most images at the edge of the water are taken by the side of a lake or pond and can’t come close to capturing the grandeur of being at the edge of an entire sea.

Until now 😊

This summer my family and I were able to take a trip that we had been talking about for years–a genuine beach vacation at the ocean. I brought only my Fuji X100F with me, leaving all my DSLRs and other gear, including my oft-used 105mm macro lens, at home and instead went with a much more minimalist approach. The only accessory in my bag was my trusty Peak Design Travel Tripod, which I can hardly recommend strongly enough for anyone who travels. I wanted to have with me everything I needed to take pictures of the trip, but not so much stuff that I was constantly thinking about which camera/lens combination to use or, worse, taking my attention away from my family and our friends with whom we shared the experience. And is often the case in these kinds of situations, my trusty little X100F, that diminutive photographic powerhouse, performed admirably.

I shot this the second night we were at the beach house, kind of as an experiment to see if I could capture even a fraction of the grandeur before me but also as a way of just getting some practice. Not living by the beach means I don’t have much experience with taking pictures like this, so while I had some things in mind as far as techniques and camera settings, I wasn’t sure how well it would all work.

In the end I think this image turned out pretty well considering the circumstances. (i.e. my inexperience, mostly.) I set my tripod on the sand with its legs fully collapsed, dialed in an exposure of f/16, ISO 200, and 28 second shutter, and took several shots as the sun was setting. Some were blurry because the ocean waves moved the sand beneath my tripod, but this one was sharp, colorful, and in my opinion the best of the bunch. I really like how the long exposure smoothed out the waves to a glassy shine, but I also wonder what it would look like if I would have been able to freeze the motion of a wave crashing on shore with a much faster shutter. Though given the light that would have necessitated a much larger aperture, and then I would have had depth of field problems, and…well, that’s how things go with photography. It’s all part of the fun :)

I was really going back and forth about what to do with this image. It’s not all that different from other photos I have taken of magnolia flowers over the years, and I’m not entirely sure it demonstrates much of anything in the way of growth and progression as a photographer. On the other hand, I like the picture from a compositional standpoint–it’s got some interesting elements all on its own, despite its similarity to other photos. I guess you could also consider it a companion piece to last week’s shot of a magnolia flower in an earlier state of bloom, whereas this one is nearing the end of its time as a flower before turning into a seed pod. Either way, I think this image stands on its own quite well even though it does have a couple minor issues that I’m not sure pleased with, and as such I figure it’s worth featuring here on the blog.

If there’s one thing that separates this shot from almost all my other magnolia flower photos I have taken, it’s the colors. Rather than white petals, green leaves, or red seeds this image is saturated with oranges, browns, and other earth tones. It’s almost the floral embodiment of Genesis 3:19, though at the same time could be considered foreshadowing for 2 Corinthians 5:15. Or maybe it’s just a cool-looking closeup of a flower. Whatever works for you :) The first thing you notice is the dark brown curlicues, or at least that was my intention, and then as you look outward from the center you’ll see that it’s embedded in this bundle of flower petals that were white but are now dull brown and will soon fall away–literally. There’s something kind of comforting about this shot, like the flower petals are almost hugging the core but knowing that their grasp won’t last long. At least that’s the kind of thought that it evokes for me anyway, but it might do something entirely different for you.

I shot this with my now-standard combination of Nikon D750 and 105mm f/2.8 macro lens, and like last week’s image I used a pretty small aperture of f/22 in order to get the shot nice and sharp where I wanted it. I did take a few exposures at f/11 and even f/8, but the depth of field was just way too small and the image wasn’t really that interesting as a result. Kind of a less-is-more, if you know what I mean. Or maybe more is more, since the depth of field is greater? I dunno. Either way, this was a fun image to take and in a lot of ways a new take on a familiar subject but one that I was glad I could capture.

Years ago in the spring of 2015 I took this photo of a magnolia tree flower while out walking around Theta Pond on the OSU campus, and that started a decade-long infatuation with photographing these magnificent signs of spring that show up every May here in Oklahoma. I don’t take photos of magnolias as often, and as regularly, as crocus or Indian paintbrush flowers, but they are fun to shoot when I have the opportunity. Or when I just think of it, because let’s face it, I often don’t :) Another classic is this top-down view that I took a few years later in the spring of 2017, again with my 50mm lens but augmented by a set of close-up filters. (Maybe a +4, perhaps? I can’t remember, and the image EXIF data doesn’t have any information about filters.) Both images were fine and, to be honest, quite good considering my skill level and the relatively modest gear with which I was shooting. But now, with a proper macro lens, it sure is fun to revisit some of these types of shots to see how things have evolved over time.

While this week’s photo wouldn’t have happened without its earlier counterparts as stepping stones on the path of learning, there’s no denying that by almost all accounts I can think of it’s just a better image. It’s much cleaner and crisper than the others, with a nice sense of contrast between light and dark. It has foreground petals to create a sense of depth and context, and I intentionally used a small aperture of f/22 in order to get a good balance between depth of field and subject sharpness. The one thing I wish I could do differently, and hope to pull off someday, is alter the lighting so that it’s more even and less harsh. At first the sun was covered in a layer of clouds, but over the course of just two or three minutes that I was facing the flower and firing off some exposures, the clouds dissipated and the sun came out—lending a brighter and more vibrant, but at the same time slightly less pleasant, light over the scene. It’s not bad, just one of those things I couldn’t control but hope to plan around the next time I go out to a magnolia tree with my camera in hand.

I’m curious though…when you look at this image, what do you see? A friend of mine took one look and said it was gross and disgusting, like dozens of slimy worms or something similar. I never thought of it that way, but everyone is entitled to their own interpretation when it comes to art, so this does leave me wondering what others see here. Is it even clear that it’s a flower, or did you think it was something else entirely? Have you taken similar shots and, if so, how did they turn out?

This is a bit of a change from the spate of flower pictures I have been sharing recently, though I guess if you squint real hard you could possibly mistake it for a kind of blooming plant of some sort. While I’m not in the habit of using Weekly Fifty for some kind of photographic guessing game, I am curious to know what you thought this was when you first saw it. Some kind of composite image, perhaps? Maybe a bit of photoshopping to embellish an ornament? I wouldn’t blame you if you thought there was some level of AI-induced trickery going on, but I can assure you the real answer is much more simple, and instead of artificial image-generating algorithms you’re looking at a combination of light and physics–plain and simple or, perhaps one might say, elegant and profound. It all depends on your point of view, but at the end of the day this image is completely real and captured entirely in camera. It’s a glass sphere sitting on top of a multicolored fidget spinner my son brought home from school:

I bought the sphere at the suggestion of my brother Phil a few months ago, and while I don’t use it every single day I do enjoy seeing the different kinds of creative opportunities it affords. In this situation I think the fidget spinner itself would make for a compelling photo, but the sphere sitting on top of it elevated the composition to a new level that I find to be pretty compelling. The trickiest part of this shot wasn’t depth of field, as often is the case when shooting with my macro lens, but shutter speed. I gave the spinner a flick with my finger and then took several shots of it as it slowed down, and was continually surprised at how difficult it was to capture a sense of motion without turning the shot into nothing more than just a blur.

What you see here is a half-second shutter, but that by itself doesn’t tell much of a story. A half second doesn’t mean anything without knowing how fast the object you are photographing is moving, and in this case I can assure you the answer was slowly. Very slowly. The spinner had, by the time I took this photo, slowed to what I guess you could describe as a crawl or, in other words, barely moving at all. I tried this several times (flicking the spinner, taking lots of photos) and each time the slower it got the more I was surprised at just how slow it really needed to turn to get the shot I was aiming for. I could have just used a shorter shutter with a faster rotation, but that would have required a higher ISO to compensate and I’m really happy with the ISO 400 I was able to use here–it results in a crisp, clean, noise-free image that does just about everything I wanted it to do.

It’s interesting to me how my standards have changed and evolved over time. Back when I first started doing more serious photography, I would have never believed I could one day get a shot like this. Partly because I had no idea how to get a shot like this, but also because I simply didn’t have the gear either. My humble little Nikon D200 and 50mm lens, the combination that kicked off this entire Weekly Fifty project, simply could not produce this image nor anything even close to it. So if someone had told me over a decade ago that I would be capable, both on a technical level as well as an experience level, of getting a picture of an insect feeding on a flower like this I simply would have disregarded the entire premise altogether. It would be too far beyond my reach.

Fast forward to present day and here we are, a photo that would have blown my mind back in 2012 and yet, all I can seem to notice are slight imperfections and opportunities for improvement. I’m not trying to be self-deprecating, it’s just that I’m kind of stunned sometimes at how much my standards have shifted the more I learn and grow as a photographer. But one thing I try to do when reflecting on my past photos is criticize them, since they were the best I could do at the time. Instead I like to see current images as evidence of growth and progression, and if they aren’t pixel-perfect then it means I just have more learning and growing to do :)

What I mean by all this is that today’s photo is, by most accounts, pretty great. (I hope it doesn’t come across as arrogant to say that.) By that I mean it hits all the notes you would expect in a good photograph. There’s a clear subject centered in the frame, and the purple petals immediately draw your eye from the surrounding greenery. It’s sharp, in focus, and there’s something interesting going on with the insect (a small bee, perhaps? I dunno.) taking a few sips of nectar from the flower. There’s even some secondary elements to draw your attention like the subtle waves of color variation in the background, the purple protrusions on the stem, and the single blade of green extending off to the right. Clearly there’s a lot to like, and a lot that went right in the making of this image.

However, and you knew there would be a caveat coming, when see this image it’s hard for me not to notice the imperfections. The bee (or whatever it is) is facing just slightly away from the camera. The depth of field is just a bit too shallow. I wish I had gotten a few inches closer. And so on. What I need to do, and what this image helps remind me, is focus on things like how much I have learned and grown as a photographer and also appreciate this shot for what it is and what it represents. I need to not get weighed down by what this photo could have been, but instead appreciate it for what it is. Sure there’s a few things I could improve next time, but there’s a lot that went right this time, and that’s worth far more to me.