Abstract macro

Learning goal

Seeing that macro can bring out textures, drops and patterns in everyday objects that the eye never notices, you will be able to set up an abstract macro study in your kitchen. You will know that a water drop behaves like a lens that shows the scene behind it turned upside down and reduced, and that oil droplets on water turn into small windows that multiply a field of color beneath them. You will use a colored paper, a fabric or a screen placed behind or under the subject as a source of light and color. You will raise texture with side light in grains of salt, in bread crust, in the layers of an onion or in the weave of a fabric. In the kitchen you will be careful with hot stoves and glass that can break. When photographing a hand dusted with flour up close, you will keep the skin's real tone without blowing out the white flour.

The question

Outside the window it has been gray and wet for days. The steam from hot tea hits the cold glass and leaves hundreds of tiny beads; your friend looks at these beads for a long time. When they bring the macro lens close to the glass, a small, upside-down image of the window appears inside each drop. On a plate on the table, a spoonful of olive oil has formed round islands on the water; the colored napkin underneath glows in a different color inside each island. They think the rainy day could be an opportunity. How do you set up macro art in the kitchen?

Context

In the abstract photography lesson you tried tearing an object from its context and telling it only through shape, line, color and texture (Lesson 16.10). In the texture and form lesson you saw that a surface's small roughness rises with side light and disappears with flat light (Lesson 11.6). In this track's light lesson you also worked on lighting a small world with a reflector, a diffuser and a flash close to the subject (Lesson K.4).

Insects and flowers are macro's usual subjects; but macro also opens a whole different world in the ordinary objects on the kitchen table. These frames often don't introduce an object; they show a color, a shape, a play of light. Moreover they are set up entirely under your control: you choose the light, the background, the subject and the time. This lesson takes up turning the kitchen into a studio and working with drops, oil, color and texture.

Simple explanation

What does a drop show?

A droplet lens is a water drop behaving like a small lens and showing the scene behind it inside itself, turned upside down and reduced. When a flower, a colored pattern or an object is placed behind a drop on a glass or a leaf, each drop carries a small copy of that object. Placing the object behind a little away from the drop and leaving it blurred lets the eye focus on the sharp image inside the drop.

You can leave drops on a glass with a dropper or a spray bottle; water mixed with a little glycerin forms rounder and longer-lasting drops. Because the slice of sharpness is very thin, you need to hold the camera parallel to the glass and put the focus on the image inside the drop. Drops falling from the tap into a kitchen sink, or a single drop falling into a dish of water, also form crowns and columns when frozen with a short flash; these frames come only with many attempts and patience.

What pattern do oil and water set up?

An oil droplet is a small, round drop of oil that floats on water and doesn't mix with it. Filling a glass dish with water, leaving a few drops of olive oil on top and stirring gently with a spoon forms hundreds of islands of different sizes. Each island behaves like a small window that slightly magnifies the background beneath it and bends the light at its edges. Placing the glass dish on top of two glasses and putting a background beneath it fills the islands with the background's colors.

A color backdrop is the paper, fabric or screen placed behind or under the subject in abstract macro that gives it color and light. A colored napkin, a card, a striped fabric or the screen of a tablet with adjustable brightness each make a good backdrop; the screen is at the same time a soft light source from below. Moving the backdrop away from the subject turns it into soft fields of color, bringing it closer sharpens the pattern and lines. These frames are entirely set-up scenes; in abstract macro this isn't a problem, it is the method itself.

Where is texture found?

The kitchen is full of texture: coarse salt grains, sugar crystals, the cracked crust of a loaf, the translucent layers of an onion, the small cells in a lemon slice, the loops of a towel. Lighting these textures with side light, a low light coming from a window or from a small lamp held close to the surface, raises them; flat light from the front, on the other hand, erases the texture. Lighting a lemon slice from below with a screen shows the cells inside it like colored stained glass.

When working in the kitchen, you need to stay away from hot stoves, sharp knives and glass that can break, and not spill liquids on the camera and the screen. When photographing a hand in the kitchen up close, for example a hand kneading dough and dusted with flour, you need to get permission. White flour forms a very bright surface on skin: on light skin the flour and the skin can blend into each other, while on dark skin the flour creates a sharp contrast and the camera can darken the skin to save the flour. Taking the metering from the skin itself and checking the bright parts of the flour on the screen keeps both in balance.

Visual evidence

Your friend sprays glycerin water drops onto the kitchen glass with a spray bottle and puts a yellow flower behind the glass, about half a meter away. When they hold the camera parallel to the glass and put the focus on one of the drops, a small, upside-down yellow flower appears inside each drop.

Then they fill a glass oven dish with water, leave a few drops of olive oil and stir gently. They put the dish on top of two glasses and place a tablet with its brightness lowered beneath it, opening a purple and orange color gradient on the screen. The islands turn into purple and orange windows; when they move the screen a little farther away, the colors soften.

Their mother is kneading dough; your friend asks her permission and photographs her light-skinned hand dusted with flour up close. In the first frame the flour is a snow-white smudge; when they pull the exposure down a little, the grains of flour and the creases of the skin read together. Their sister comes over too and presses her dark-skinned hand into the dough; when the metering is taken from her skin, the flour stays without blowing out, the skin in its warm brown.

Common mistakes

Summary

Macro art in the kitchen is bringing out the worlds hidden in everyday objects with small set-up scenes: a drop behaves like a lens that turns the scene behind it upside down and reduces it, oil droplets on water turn into windows that multiply the color backdrop beneath them, the texture of salt, bread and onion rises with side light. A paper, a fabric or a screen becomes the color backdrop and light source; safety is minded in the kitchen, and a hand dusted with flour is photographed in its real tone, with permission and metered from the skin, without the flour blowing out.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will set up three abstract macro frames in your kitchen.

1. Leave drops on a glass, put a colored object a fair way behind it and shoot focusing on the small image inside the drops.
2. Put water and a few drops of oil in a glass dish, place a colored paper or a screen beneath it and photograph the islands; see the difference by bringing the backdrop closer and moving it away.
3. Photograph a textured object in the kitchen with side light; if a hand will also enter the frame, get its owner's consent and read the light from the skin.

Check yourself

• Is the image inside the drops sharp?
• How did the backdrop's distance change the color of the islands?
• Is the hand dusted with flour in its real tone, without blowing out?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. How does a water drop show the scene behind it?

• A) As it is, upright and large
• B) It doesn't show it
• C) Turned upside down and reduced
• D) Only as a color

2. Why do oil droplets on water look colored?

• A) Because they carry the color of the backdrop placed beneath them
• B) Because the oil itself is colored
• C) Because the camera adds color
• D) Because the water heats up

3. Which light is used to raise the texture of salt grains?

• A) Flat light from the front
• B) Low light from the side
• C) No light at all
• D) A bare flash from above

4. How is the exposure made when photographing a hand dusted with flour?

• A) Only for the bright white of the flour
• B) As the camera suggests, without checking
• C) With the highest ISO
• D) With the metering taken from the skin and the bright parts of the flour checked on the screen

Answers

1. C — A round drop works like a small lens and shows the scene behind it upside down and small.
2. A — The islands magnify the backdrop beneath them like small windows and carry it into the frame.
3. B — Low side light lights the face of each grain turned to the light and leaves a shadow behind it.
4. D — The skin is the basis of the metering, and the bright spots of the flour are checked separately so they don't blow out.

Summary card

• The kitchen is a studio: drop, oil, color, texture.
• Put an object a fair way behind the drop; give the focus to the inside of the drop.
• Put a colored backdrop or a screen beneath the oil droplets.
• Raise texture with side light; mind the stove, the knife, the glass.
• Photograph a floury hand with permission; meter from the skin, check the flour on the screen.

Bridge to the next lesson

The rain stops and your friend goes back to the garden. In the middle of a wet leaf a metallic green beetle is waiting: they want to see every detail sharp, from its eye to the tip of its wing. At f/11 only its head is sharp, the tips of its wings soft. A club member shows them a rail that slides the camera and software that combines frames. How do you build sharpness from an insect's eye to the tip of its wing? The next lesson takes up focus stacking in macro, the rail, the step interval and combining in software, step by step.