macro photography – Nature in Focus

I was practising with my new macro lens on this bottlebrush or callistemon flower in the garden when a tiny fly decided to join the party. I often don’t notice the bugs until I start focusing on the flowers with my camera – perhaps I need to wear my glasses when I want to look specifically for small insects. I am impressed with the macro lens (Nikon 105mm), although I did get good results with the 60 mm (just need to be that bit closer).

Bee on red callistemon

Burchardia congest (milkmaid) with shiny insect

Native wisteria and bee

Bold Park dragonfly

With the bigger insects, like bees and dragonflies, I usually do see them unaided – of course, getting sharp shots is still a bit of a challenge. My real bugbear is butterflies – every time I try to focus they flit away – but I did manage one decent butterfly image this year. Sometimes I think I should stick to the big slow caterpillars!

Butterfly on melaleuca flower

Vine hawk moth caterpillar

Some of these images are in one of my Redbubble calendars for 2015.

Common fringe lily (Thysanotus tuberosus)

Western Australia has an amazing variety of wild flowers, many of them unique to the region. Spring is unsurprisingly the optimum time for chasing flowers with your camera, but there is almost always something flowering at any time of the year. Some, like the fringe lily above and a few in the selection below, are tiny and need some careful hunting to find. They also often involve strange contortions to photograph, which is fine when they are in our own garden or in a quiet patch of bush, but can lead to funny looks at more public places like Kings Park.

Stylidium – or triggerplant, also considered a carnivorous plant.

Stylidium close-up

Droopy daisy

Pretty in pink – unfortunately not sure what this is.

Pimelea spectabilis

Pink drosera flower – very tiny sundew (carnivorous plants).

This next selection includes some of the distinctively Australian plants, such as grevilleas, banksias, eucalypts and verticordias. These are often much bigger plants with easily recognisable flowers, although some can still be tricky to identify correctly. Very interesting plants and flowers, I sometimes find it quite challenging to do them justice – getting a photographically appealing image that is still recognisable (to my botanist hubby, particularly) is not always easy. And of course, we won’t mention the dratted breezes, the enemy of all flower photographers!