In another homage to MC Escher, this time more subtle, here is a photo of two ducks in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The ducks are just entering the frame, disturbing a dogwood reflection in their small pond near the Japanese Tea Garden. The floating leaves, in particular, make this image Escheresque.
This miniature world is hidden in day-to-day life, giving you access to an unfamiliar world of fine detail. Along with the lost sense of scale, exemplified by MC Escher, this is a key element in a lot of abstract art.
Macro simply means shooting close-ups; technically it means “life-size” or 1:1 magnification. The size of the image on the film plane can be as large as it is in real life. This strict technical definition is being eroded; zoom lenses that achieve 1:4 - quarter-sized reproduction - call themselves macro, and compact digital cameras measure their macro ability by how close they can get to the target, rather than how many of the chip’s pixels can be devoted to recording a small topic. So, for simplicity’s sake, in this article we’re talking about close-up photography, which doesn’t have to be specifically at a 1:1 ratio.
Obviously, this is far from”life-size;” the leaf was probably two inches across, recorded on a 35 mm digital camera, with a 135 mm f/2 L, a lens offering a sorry (for this purpose) magnification of 1:5. Some cropping was naturally in order to “get closer” to the subject.
Welcome to my world: the imagery of Forrest Croce of Seattle, Washington.
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