The art of the closeup

There’s a hidden world of photography right under your nose. It’s a world of colors and shapes and textures, and very few people ever notice it. It’s the world of close-up photography, a technique where focusing on very small details makes very large impressions. Close-up photography is about seeing things from a different point of view, and it’s easier than you might think.
Get a Little Closer
A good close-up takes a subject that would otherwise be just an element in a larger photograph and turns that into the picture. Great close-ups come from any small object with a lot of detail or color, or with some items that contrast each other. Many people like to take close-up photographs of flowers, with their brightly colored petals and their interesting shapes. But a close-up can also come from constructed objects too, or even people.
Try to pick things that will catch the eye when photographed. A lightly colored butterfly sitting on a dark leaf. The red petals of a rose with green grass behind. Brown rust across the surface of a shiny piece of chrome. All of these things make very unusual photographs because most people don’t stop to look at them closely.
Once you find something you’d like to photograph, go ahead and get close to it. Try to figure out what part of it looks best. Then try to figure out a good way to make the object fit in the photograph. How you chose to shoot your picture is called composition and it is very important for close-ups.
For example, if you’re photographing a flower, you might choose to shoot it from down low, using the blue sky as your background, or you might want to take the picture with lots of other flowers behind it. Or maybe you want the flower to fill up the entire frame, without any other flowers or sky behind it at all. All of these pictures will look very different, and that’s because they all have a different composition.

Getting in the Mode
Some cameras are better at taking close-ups than others (your camera has to be able to focus very close up to take a good picture) and many of them have a close-up mode. Check your camera’s manual to see if it has a close-up or macro mode. (Some cameras show this with a setting that looks like a flower.)
Macro is a type of super close-up, which allows you to get pictures that look they were shot through a magnifying lens. You can get incredibly detailed pictures with a camera that can take macro close-ups, and many cameras have special lenses available for taking macro photographs.
If your camera doesn’t have a close-up or macro mode, you can still take a close-up shot with your zoom lens. Position the camera a few feet away from your subject, and zoom in on it until you get the same composition as if you’d walked closer to the object without zooming. Voila! Instant close-up.
Cameras with a manual-focus mode have a bit of an advantage over auto focusing cameras. In the small world of close-up photography, a slight change in focus can make a big difference in how a picture looks. A camera with manual focus allows the photographer to choose what part of the object will be in focus, and what part will be blurry.
Steady On
Close-up photography requires a steady hand. Any little camera motion can really make a blurry photograph. That’s why the number one tool in the close-up photographer’s collection is a tripod. A nice lightweight but sturdy tripod can really help make a great close-up photograph.
A special kind of tripod, called a “tabletop” tripod, is great for photographing small flowers and other objects. A tabletop tripod looks like a miniature tripod. It’s only a few inches tall, and lets you get extremely close to the ground, which is where most flowers are found.
Even if you don’t have a tripod, you can get a great close-up photograph. Simply steady the camera by putting it on a chair, a table, even a rock. Anything that will keep the camera from moving will help.
If you try to take close-up pictures of flowers or any other lightweight subject outside, you might notice that any slight gust of wind makes it hard to compose the picture. This can be a problem, so a lot of first time close-up photographers choose to work with still life subjects inside first, to get the hang of it.
Close-up photography can open up a whole new world of creative possibilities. Get in close and try a new photographic technique today.

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