We all know the saying "appreciate the little things in life", well this is true of photography as well.
Macro photography is getting in close and literally making a big thing of the finer details. So it could be about getting really close to a bug and being able to get so close you can see every hair. Or the veining on a flower petal. With some patterns you can find in nature you can actually create quite nice, abstract pictures.
Equipment wise I use my Sony 90mm F2.8 Macro lens. This is a dedicated macro lens which offers 1:1 scale which means how big it is in real life is how big it will be in the photo. I have the 90mm rather than the 50mm macro Sony also do because you can be a little further away from whatever you are shooting. Which is great for bugs. As if your only a matter of inches away they are like to fly away. So that extra few inches you can distance yourself with the 90mm make a difference. You don't need a macro lens however. If your budget doesn't stretch to it then you can always buy extension tubes. You can pick up most for between £20-£50. They give you a similar effect of a closer focal distance. They just attach to your camera before you attach the lens and are stackable to multiply the effect.
I generally tend to use it to take pictures of insects. Which you can do in your back garden, it keeps you practicing photography. And given that the warmer weather is now here, the amount of bugs is steadily increasing. Bees, ladybirds, dragonflys, beetles even just a fly can look really rather interesting when get in close and really look at it.
Getting a picture of a moving subject is difficult enough, but then you need to start thinking about the composition. And with very often just one focal point of interest the composition is what will make a macro photo a great photo. Diagonal lines and looking for interesting shapes and patterns help as well as the general compositional guidelines such as rule of thirds, symmetry, repetition, etc.
But it is not all about bugs you can take a macro photo of anything really. However personally I feel that nature gives the most wonderful textures and patterns, that day to day you don't think about or even see. But taking the time to appreciate those little things, you can see what is really out there.
I'll post some stock images below of different macro photography to give you inspiration and below those will be my own macro photos.
Stock Images
My own photos.
