It's a small world
Browsing through my website, it’s pretty obvious that macro photography of both flora and fauna makes up about 90% of the images I take, at least when conditions are right. Actually, this has much more to do with my love and fascination for the natural world than it does for my passion for photography, but that’s a story for another time. What does, however, make me just a little bit different from the vast majority of macro photographers is that I usually work exclusively with natural light. This has its benefits, but I admit it also its disadvantages, so last year I made up my mind to finally get to grips with using a flash. I took the plunge and bought a flash and diffuser right at the end of last arthropod season with the idea of getting some practice in before the return of my beloved critters, but after enthusiastically charging the flash battery, it remained on the shelf until… yesterday.
Of course the wisdom of advancing (advanced?) years should have suggested that I studied manuals and settings before going out, but I am still young in my ability to err, so I inevitably found myself caught up in heated disputes between my camera and my flash, while the few arthropod subjects I came across laughed so much they fell off their respective petals and leaves. It’s clear I still have a great deal to learn, but that doesn’t trouble me unduly, a little bit of study should sort things out. No, it’s not the technical side that bothers me.
My problem comes with the sheer “ingombro” of the thing. Now in Italian, “ingrombro” means more or less the space something takes up, and that diffuser… well, I just don’t seem to be able to cope with the sheer size of the thing! I’m used to being able to slip in and out of bramble and hawthorn patches more or less unscathed, or slide my lens easily through a jungle of stalks and leaves. But heaven help me if try the same thing with the diffuser mounted! The disturbance I create must be the equivalent of a hurricane and earthquake combined for all the small inhabitants of the undergrowth who rightly flee or drop to the ground and disappear.
So after I finish disentangling bits of plastic and cord from miscellaneous thorns and other protuberances, all I’m left with is an arthropod desert. And if I do manage to get near enough, the sight of all that towering shiny whiteness is enough to send any remaining arthropods into a blind panic. You can just see the terror in their little eyes… and who can blame them! In short, yesterday the addition of flash and diffuser undoubtedly made me lose more shots then it helped me take. On the other hand, a couple of the images I did manage to get were only possible thanks to the flash, and that’s enough to convince me to persevere.
My initial conclusion is that it’s a completely different ball game and precisely because of that, with practice, I can imagine it becoming complementary to, rather than a substitute for, the natural light macro photography I will probably always prefer. I will stick at it and endure the derision of my arthropod subjects, until the use of flash or natural light becomes a conscious decision, rather than the inevitable consequence of my lack of technical expertise. Will I succeed? Only time will tell.
For my Italian-speaking friends (or anyone wanting to translate into another language), I recommend DeepL translator available clicking here or also as a browser extension for Google Chrome.
Per i miei amici di lingua italiana (o chiunque voglia tradurre in un’altra lingua), consiglio DeepL translator disponibile cliccando qui o anche come estensione per il browser Google Chrome.