The Macro Workshop in my Byron Bay studio was a cram-packed day! I set-up all the shots, but I did not get a chance to take any photos on the day….and when I saw the images my students had made…well!..I was just so inspired to get my own take on each ’set’. So I recreated them all again the next day and then I let my beautiful subjects bugjects go.
Of course, I couldn’t re-magic the shots we found outside, but I did have a few lovely hours outside with the dragonflies. Which was lucky as it turned out, because the next day the council came and did some major works on dredging the waterway…and wrecked my dragonfly hunting grounds! : (““
Oh, how I love my new studio stand-block-thingy. I have been cooking up this contraption in my head for a good long while..and finally in a burst of sub-concious and concious colliding, I was able to jot down what I had in mind. This innocuous looking block looks innocent enough, sculptural even…but its simple form allows me to turn it to 4 different positions and a myriad uses.
The ever-delightful and increasingly carpenter-ish Angus, turned my scribbled ideas into a real-world thing – my studio block…actually that has a nice solid ring to it that deserves to be capitalised: Studio Block. maybe even all caps and exclamations : STUDIO BLOCK!!!
Ok, so, my Studio Block is designed so I can
- Low and wide for tableaux that I want to shoot from above. I can stand on my Studio Block to shoot from above, or
- In the same position I can place my light Cube from Japan on it – and voila, the perfect space for photographing flying insects! It is wide enough at the bottom, so that my bugjects can’t escape.
If I need more light, the flash heads can be placed right up against it. In this position I sit on the floor and can give my bugjects space, so they are not stressed and I get the images I love.
- Next I can place my infinity board stand on it, and it is at a perfect height for creating still life compositions (which I am really doing alot of at the moment). My Infinity board stand is a great piece of equipment, but rarely utilised because it is a weird height. Too low on the ground, too high on a table…but just right on my Studio Block.
- I roll my Studio Block (loving its name!) to its medium height for creating compositions that I want to shoot from the front. It is the perfect height for shooting from a chair. This is life-changing stuff! As I can now sit comfortably, and rearrange compositions to my finnicky hearts content. I can roll a block of shelf things I got at Ikea (and have hated and tried to throw out for three years, but it just kept on being useful…and now, well I love it) right next to me. The load the ikea thing up with the props I might like to use, and then just tinker. Bliss. If I want to shoot the composition from above, I just stand on a chair.
- The high side of my Studio Block comes up to my waist and it is a great height for small things. I have been photographing all the new jewellery for the Institute of Cute and it really is a great height.
Do you want to see it?
Yay the Birdwing butterflies ‘hatched’ from their giant chrysalis yesterday! And I have been in hot pursuit of them ever since…
This morning I went on a Butterfly watching walk with Kath Vail, an environmental campaigner and butterfly expert in the Byron Shire. The weather has been unsettled for the past few days and is still very humid – perfect for butterflies! I learned that many butterflies are attracted to hilltops and males wage heated territorial battles. So while wandering amongst the zooming butterflies was utter magic, trying to capture a pic was like trying to remember a dream, always just a little bit out of reach.
Blue Triangle butterflies in a territorial dispute....
I was surprised to find I managed to capture anything at all, because the butterflies were just SO fast and unpredictable. This image prompted me to look through my vast collection of butterfly images looking for pics I had taken of them in full flight.
I was surprised at how long I have been struggling with this unrealised mission and how much film (both roll and digital) I have dedicated towards it. I have many, many pics of movement blurred butterflies tearing along garden paths, above tree-tops and across skies.
For example, I visited the extraordinary Chicago Botanic Gardens a few years ago, and after hours and hours of enjoying the gardens and all the bugs in them, spotted two large butterflies playing tag across the carpark (which was an arboretum in itself).
I love these images because they remind me of magnificent days spent in sunshine with time to admire nature and marvel at the world. They aren’t magic images to anyone except me. They inspire me to keep experimenting and trying to overcome the impossible and capture an image that fully conveys the beauty I am witnessing and joy I feel when butterfly watching.
