A Small and Still Life

Still Life Macro Photography

Time Key

Old Portrait

A Key to Match

Locked Keys

Keys to Time

Still life macro photography is a more difficult area for me. It isn’t hard to get the image, but it is hard for me to be creative. I don’t find still objects nearly as interesting as flowers and insects.

My best still life macro photography images came from a light painting shoot I did on my own time. I found this bag of keys and I used a Tokina 11-14mm macro lens to get up close and personal. I was taking these photos at night time and to get enough exposure I used a 2 sec. exposure and used a pen light to paint enough light on the keys. With my F-stop at 2.8 and an ISO at 100 I was able to get a shallow depth of field. It took a bit of time to do each photograph, but I was able to create interesting shadows and light patterns.

For a critique I had my photography buddy, Doug Phan, help me out. I’m not the best with composition and focusing, so he helped me choose the best compositions and point out where things needed to be sharpened more. I cropped a lot of my photos to make them more interesting and to put my focal point in a good spot. I also sharpened the focal points to help them stand out better.

For some incredible still life macro photography inspiration visit the Smashing Wall!