The Creative Photographer: My 2023 photography journey continued

Well since my last blog I have only managed to get out to do a little photography once due to my health not being too good, so have mostly been concentrating on short creative spells sat at our dining room. I have swapped between macro photography of insects and flowers, mostly focus stacked, a couple of still life images and even a little dabble into food photography which I really enjoyed. Its been a bit rough health wise but doing photography has really helped to distract me from how I feel both physically and mentally. It also keeps me happy

My trip out was to Wallington hall to see their little lawn full of purple Crocuses. We set off to arrive as close to opening times as possible on a sunny morning to capture the flowers at their best, but it was busy from the start, with one of the NT photographers set up on the lawn, being rather grumpy at anyone who got in his shots - this made us laugh as he could have gone half an hour early and got the shots without people in.

In truth this spot was incredibly difficult for me to reach on my mobility scooter, so anyone with mobility issues or using a mobility device would be wise to check access before going if heading to the walled garden. There is only one access point for those in a wheelchair or on a mobility scooter and it is incredibly steep.

So as my exhaustion levels have been so high and I have been feeling so unwell lately, I have kept my activities to as low energy as possible. I have enjoyed doing focus stacking sat our table and feel that Im learning more. I've photographed some spring flowers and a few insects aswell. I have also finished creating a new texture pack which I have put up for sale in my Etsy store, a few examples of images with these textures are below.

Im am starting to get to grips with how to relax and position the taxidermy insect specimens after breaking limbs of quite a few. I never knew there was so much to learn about the care of such specimens and Im so grateful that the macro community involved with Alan Walls's following are so open to sharing and helping each other. I highly recommend anyone starting out in this area to look them up on Discord or Youtube.

Ive had a quick play with still life and hope to do more this coming week after obtaining some nice new items to use. The Cherry blossoms are blooming and I couldnt resist a simple set up.

I've been planning to try a bit of food photography for a while and as there is a competition this month I decided to push myself to try things Ive not done before. I have to say that I really enjoyed both attempts and will be trying more this year. For the cheesecake set up I preferred doing straight on shots to flat lay and it was good to use the focus stacking rail for the close up cheesecake slice shots too. I found these easier than doing still life.

I have more appreciation for food photographers and stylists after doing these, there are lots of little things to keep in mind, attention to detail is important and sometimes its better to use foods in a slightly different way to how we would eat it - for example a fresh blueberry with sauce over it is going to look a lot more appealing in a photo than a cooked blueberry. Keeping things looking fresh is important too.

This set up of pancakes was actually really easy, although harder to capture the honey dribbling exactly as I wanted in just a couple of attempts - Im sure seasoned food photographers will have several lots of pancakes and berries, and plenty of honey, I was not as prepared. The lighting was not as difficult as I had anticipated, just two lights and a reflector, plus a couple of small diffusers, although I did make a learners error in leaving the room light on.