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Colorado Adventure and Editorial Photographer

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Sparkling macro backgrounds

April 7, 2020 • Shooting Tips

 

As we are all watching the flowers come up this spring, hopefully some of this time at home can be spent on macro photography.  Cree and I have daily macro sessions in our yard, and each day new flowers seems to appear.  This is a great time to try focus stacking, selective focus and ‘shaky’ (slow shutter speed with movement) flower technique.  And while there is a lot of focus camera craft, let’s not forget to think about basic color theory and graphic design.

Try this simple trick.  We bought some sparkling craft paper, and use this to change our macro flower backgrounds.  Even better, we can choose a complimentary color to add some spice to our macro image.  Place the sparkle paper behind your flower, and angle it until you see the silver sparkles appear.  Now take the shot.  The end result is a soft sparkling background that is a complimentary color to your flower.  Remember the complimentary colors…red/green, yellow/purple and blue/orange.  For this image at the top I used a D850 with 105mm macro lens in aperture priority.  Aperture was set at 5.6 to increase the depth of field on the flower.  Just waiting on the red rose to bloom so I can use some green sparkle paper behind it!

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