“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” —Henry David Thoreau
What do close-up photographs do for us? Close-ups have power because the minutiae of our world often pass unnoticed. The tiny flowers, insects, lichens, and other elements in an ecosystem show the interconnectedness of all things and can strongly convey the biodiversity in nature, making people aware of beauty on a small scale. For many viewers, it’s a wakeup call to the importance of protecting all parts of an ecosystem. Often, the small critters are the first to become endangered, and by showing good photographs of them it may be possible to prevent their disappearance. In my presentations, I point out how all these things in the food chain are interconnected and why it is necessary to protect as many as we can.
Revealing Elements of the Scene. It’s easy to overlook some of the elements. On one of my trips to Borneo I was photographing an orangutan sanctuary where young ones, orphaned by logging of their habitat, were being taught how to survive in the wild. The mothers, who normally pass on knowledge of what to eat in the forest, had been killed by the loggers. So the youngsters needed to be educated over a long period of time about how to survive on their own. The program had been successful; numerous orangutans were returned to the wild in protected rain forest reserves. However, I noticed one adult that was caged and I learned that he had been rescued as a victim of the pet trade. He had grown up in the company of humans and had no survival skills for the wild. He was doomed to spend the rest of his adult life in the slammer. I took the close-up photo below to portray, symbolically, what might happen to all orangutans if their rain forest habitat continues to be destroyed.
This adult orangutan in Malaysian Borneo was a victim of the pet trade and grew up in the company of humans. He had no survival skills in the wild and was destined to spend the rest of his adult life in the slammer.
Insects. I have spent a lot of time in places like Serengeti National Park crawling on my hands and knees to photograph such things as dung beetles. Why would I bother with such a lowly creature? It turns out that dung beetles are a vital part of the Serengeti ecosystem. Rolling that golf-ball sized piece of dung, the beetle eventually finds a spot to bury it and lays its eggs within the buried ball. Now, it may not seem like much, but there are millions of dung beetles in the Serengeti ecosystem burying dung almost continually, day and night. That seemingly simple act multiplied by the millions has created an amazingly efficient means of fertilizing those grasslands. In turn, the lush grasslands feed the herbivores, which in turn feed the predators—and the whole web of life in that ecosystem carries on.
The lowly dung beetle is an important part of the Serengeti ecosystem. Aside from cleaning up after two million wildebeests and zebras, these beetles provide a highly efficient means of fertilizing grasslands which support millions of grazers—and, in turn, a healthy population of predators. (100mm macro lens)
These luxuriant grasslands are partly a result of dung beetles burying dung in which to lay eggs. (24–105mm zoom lens at 24mm)
This photo of a bee on a flower was made with a 100mm macro lens, hand held with soft overcast lighting. Start with photos like this, then try to take the story of dying bee populations to the next level. What is the impact on food production? How are insecticides affecting bee populations? What other insects are affected? Is there an impact on bird and animal populations? Tell the story.
Arctic tundra plants (a diminutive fern, plus edible lingonberries) comprise the spongy carpet of groundcover. I shot with a 55mm macro lens, using a tripod.
This shot of a tundra blueberry on the coastal plain of the Itkillik River was made while hand holding the camera with a 55mm macro lens. I was on my stomach with the camera cradled in my hand and my elbow firmly planted in the soft tundra for support. (And, I confess: I did eat the blueberry and many others nearby. They are the sweetest of all blueberries. Only problem is, you need to keep an eye out for grizzly bears. They like them, too.)
However, as use of insecticides increases in many parts of Africa, some of them could be carried on the wind into protected areas like Serengeti. If dung beetles should begin to die off, their role as fertilizer spreaders will diminish and that could result in a reduction in the quality of the grasslands. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that this could have a chain reaction effect: fewer grasses mean fewer herbivores, which means fewer predators, and on up the food chain. Part of the story.
In recent years, the bee population in North America, Europe, and other places has fallen dramatically. The consequences of this are enormous because bees provide vital pollination of many plants, both domestic and wild. Many food crops rely on bees. One calculation suggests that every third bite of food you eat was pollinated by a bee. Here is an opportunity for you as a conservation photographer to tell this story. It won’t be easy because elements of the story are difficult to photograph (insecticides being used, bees dying, the effects on hives, etc.), but you can start with macro photos of bees on flowers and go from there.
Tiny Plants. The tundra of the far northern parts of our continent, and in our mountain regions above timberline, is another fascinating ecosystem. From a distance, it may seen to be a sterile and almost lifeless environment, but the diminutive plants and critters that thrive there are important—and fascinating. By definition, tundra is a biome where trees and certain other plants are limited by low temperatures and short growing seasons. Special adaptations are required to survive. The vegetation is made up of dwarf plants—shrubs, sedges, grasses, mosses, and lichens.
Stretching across northern Alaska, from west to east, is the Brooks Range containing some of the wildest regions of North America. On the north slope of the Brooks Range are the coastal plains that extend to the Arctic Ocean. This is tundra on a vast scale. It’s also a region that has been exploited for oil and continues to be threatened by more such developments. One such area threatened is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. While parts of this land seem featureless compared to the spectacular mountains of Alaska, there is much to photograph here—but you need to get on your hands and knees and sometimes on your belly. There, you’ll discover an infinite variety of photographic subjects.
Snakes. Snakes are not the favorite critter of most people. So it’s a challenge to convey the importance and beauty—yes, I said beauty—of snakes. Some are not only beautifully patterned, but that pattern sometimes makes them masters of camouflage. I photographed a Gaboon viper (below) at a herpetology research center in Kenya. Not only are Gaboon vipers one of the deadliest of venomous snakes, they are well camouflaged and nearly invisible on the forest floor. That’s an amazing adaptation.
While some zoom lenses have so-called macro focusing capabilities, in reality you may find that most don’t give you good close-ups of really small subjects. For these, you’ll need a separate macro lens. Common focal lengths are 50mm, 55mm, or 60mm and there are others around 100mm. The shorter lenses will allow, when stopped down to f/22, more depth of field to bring more parts of the subject into focus. However, you will also be working closer to the subject with this focal length and may scare off insects you are trying to photograph. I usually use a 100mm macro lens, which allows me to give space to certain animate subjects and not frighten them off. There are also a few longer macro lenses of 180mm or 200mm, which will give even more space though they are also physically larger to carry around. Incidentally, keep in mind that if you choose, say, a 100mm macro lens and use it on a camera body with a APS-C size sensor, the crop factor will make it function like a 160mm macro lens on a full-frame camera.
Most macro lenses, regardless of focal length, will allow focusing down to a 1:1 magnification ratio; that is, the subject will be recorded life-size on the film or sensor. You can add an extension tube between camera body and lens for even greater magnification.
When working in the field I like to keep my equipment to a minimum. So only under certain circumstances do I use flash. Most often, in daylight photography, I use a higher ISO setting on the camera so that I have a sufficiently fast shutter speed for subjects that might be moving slightly or situated in dimmer lighting—or if I can’t use a tripod. However, some of my rainforest macro work was done at night, because that’s when it was easiest to find certain critters of the forest. There, I used a ring light for an even form of lighting. One great advantage of using flash is that the light is so bright that it allows for the use of smaller apertures, giving you more depth of field. In addition, the brightness coupled with a reasonably fast shutter speed allows you to hand-hold the camera and position yourself freely.
From above, it appears to be a pile of dead leaves on a forest floor—but it is a Gaboon viper coiled neatly and awaiting prey. Only from a low angle (right) does the head and eye of the viper become apparent. Both photos show a captive specimen at a venom research center in Kenya. Because I was shooting through the glass terrarium, I didn’t use flash to avoid creating reflections. (100mm macro lens)
This moth was photographed at night on a colorful helliconia bloom in the Tambopata-Candamo rainforest reserve in Peru. I used a ring light on a 100mm macro lens for even illumination. The short range of light from the flash produced a completely black background.
Macro photography helps to convey the wonder and diversity of nature and to reveal the interconnectedness of things in our environment. This photo was also made in the Peru rainforest with a ring light flash on a 100mm macro lens. It conveys the wonder of how animals and insects have adapted to their environment. This leaf-mimicking insect obviously evolved this way to protect against being eaten by birds. From a distance, you would be hard pressed to spot this insect against the riot of foliage in the forest.
This smaller LED light (160 LEDs) is good for short range close-up work. For long range and wider coverage you’ll need larger units. LEDs are vital for shooting video at night. For still photography, they allow you to follow the movement of subjects for continuous shooting.
Today’s LED lights offer some advantages over flash. The constant light from LEDs allows you to follow the movement of subjects in the dark for continuous shooting. They also provide excellent lighting on small subjects and throw off almost no heat that might disturb more delicate or sensitive subjects. If you are shooting video, they are vital for shooting at night. A drawback: if you are trying to cover a wide area of view or need illumination to cover something many feet from the camera, you will need one of the very large LED lights or several smaller ones. The larger LED lights are bulky and heavy—a disadvantage if you’re trying to travel light.