Improvement
/*** LATE ENTRY - THURSDAY 6/20/24 ***
I just wrapped up the second livestream of the week and in it I talked about the slime mold that I brought back from my ramble with Bud Perrott during his visit yesterday. I couldn’t find the image but as soon as we finished I did find it and, as promised, here it is. I liked it because of the strange incongruity coming from the perspective. I added a little “sun” to the blue background, but otherwise this is how it was shot. The happy accident was the lower third. I was using a blend of blue and white blue tack to hold the tiny leaf fragment at just the right angle, but in the final image, the blueback looked like flowing sea water with foam in the waves, as you might see at the coast. Anyway, it looked like a group of fruiting bodies enjoying a coastal sunset and I went with it…
I really like this accidental shot
So let’s get on with the week…
*******
This week I am doing a two-part piece on improvement and on the ten most consequential changes that I made to my gear and to my head over the last few decades. But before I get into that I want to tell you a quick story about a duck. A very unfortunate looking duck, as it happens. I’ll be frank with you about this - I do not like this duck - he or she is short-tempered, a bit boorish, and has terrible etiquette. So I am down at the pond looking for something, anything, to photograph, when I walked up on this grouchy gargoyle, apparently enjoying a nice refreshing drink of mud.
Duck enjoying a drink of mud?
If you have never seen a giant duck with a face even its mother would waddle away from taking gulp after nauseating gulp of pond-dredgeings then don’t fault me for bursting out laughing, I really couldn’t help it and it didn’t last long. Well, you would have thought I had thrown a rock at him/her by the way he/she puffed up and started advancing on me. I am not the physical type when it comes to arguments with waterfowl, I would rather just talk it out over something other than mud, but talk it out nonetheless. That was not on the cards - this hideous creature was out for blood.
Angry duck begins the charge
And out of nowhere waddle the cutest little duck-couple. They casually walk right between me and my approaching nemesis, before sliding down the bank to my arch-villain’s drinking spot where they both began sipping the watery bit of the pond, above the muddy part.
The young couple prepare to have a drink
And what do you suppose my attacker does in response to the young lovers taking his spot? Absolutely nothing. No puffing of the chest, hissing, or charging. Just stands there, not a care in the world, making it look like I was the one that started this ruckus in the first place. I hate when birds make me look foolish …
Duck makes it look like I started the argument - typical
Enough! You want to improve your macro? - go to B&H and pick up your new Nikon Z 6III, and a Nikkor MC105
That is one very capable looking camera! Nikon is back in the driver’s seat!
If there is one thing that we all probably can agree on, it is that we would like to improve. But have you ever thought about what the process of improvement entails, or the best way to go about getting the results that you want? That is what we are going to spend a little time looking at this week. My journey through macro photography has been one long, drawn out process of improvement, and because much of macro lies at the fuzzy edge of advancing technology, there is not really a roadmap to follow after a certain point. Instead of just doing what the people before us did, we often find ourselves needing to improvise and expand on what has come before. This innovation is one of the most exciting aspects of macro photography for me. And it never ends - no sooner do we have the latest modification of our rig completed than we have an idea of how it might be even a little bit better, an off we go again. If we are smart we will also come up with ways to evaluate our improvements to see if they really did help, and we will keep a record of what did and what did not work.
A tiny leaf rolling moth
And it is not just about improving our platform or our lighting, or our studio space, it is also about adjusting our technique. The general concept is much the same, but progress is harder to measure and we are more prone to seeing what we want to see when we change how we do things (we don’t like to be wrong, and it is a very subjective process.
And here is a link to the stream - https://youtube.com/live/xJExm3rIN0g?feature=share
I am going to split the discussion into these two distinct areas and examine them both in some detail during this week’s livestreams. On Tuesday I am going to focus on improving the physical circumstances of our photography - our cameras and lenses, rigs and lighting, macro rails and diffusers, and give some examples of what I have changed and plan to change in the interests of improving my photography. I’ll explain where the ideas came from, how I went about the changes and what I have found subsequently. At least for me, the physical improvement process is almost continuous and it doesn’t always move me towards my goals - that doesn’t matter, as the process of improvement does not require a good result to be a valuable and useful experience.
In Thursday’s livestream, Macro Talk Too, I am going to change gears and talk about the process of improving what we do with the gear we have designed and assembled. We will answer questions like what areas do I need to improve in, what would a positive change look like and how would I measure it. Where do we find information that can help us assess what we are doing now, so that we can see where to direct our efforts at improvement.Where can we get help and what does that help look like?
And a link to this one too - https://youtube.com/live/UaVP1dczaaA?feature=share
Typically, this kind of improvement is less continuous and usually comes in bursts motivated by something we hadn’t noticed before. As we get better at what we do, we become more critical of our results and start to see things that we would never have noticed before. And as we become more practiced at improving, often when we start teaching others, wetted to become more focused in how we challenge our status quo - probing for new weaknesses to address. I will walk through my improvement process and show some examples of the watershed moments that prompted a more urgent attitude about improvement.
The “short focus”vignette, but still a very sharp picture of my weevil smoking a cigar
On Saturday we have two events to look forward to - the first is a Pzoom meeting.
This is a Patreon Subscriber gathering that starts at 10AM on Saturday and goes until noon. For more information about what we are doing this weekend, please see the short post I have put over on Patreon, with your invitation.
If you have not seen it yet, this is the Optolux test shot from last Thursday
Wrapping up the week, also on Saturday, Tangent joins us once again to explore the idea of using a tool like Fusion 360 to design and plan a macro rig. If you have you plan started , please send what you have to tangent@tangent.com, or hand it to him over on DiscordI seriously doubt if I am going to have the time this week to finish mine - so do what you can to get yours in to Tangent, preferably before Friday.
Here is your Zoom invitation for the Tangent…
Allan Walls is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Tangent
Time: Jun 22, 2024 12:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6916802815?pwd=TS9tZi9ZL1NXeVUvOUF4eTg5YjdlZz09&omn=85027615644
Meeting ID: 691 680 2815
Passcode: 678122
And that is it for this week - a busy one to be sure, but it is also going to be a lot of fun. One more picture for the road (I have been taking quite a few images this month!). See you on Tuesday!
Allan
Her better side!