Macro
My first love is macro photography. I use a Nikon D500 camera with a Nikon 105mm lens plus a Nikon 1.4X teleconverter, which equates to a 150mm lens.
My favourite subjects are butterflies and odonata (dragonflies and damselflies), because I find them the most beautiful of minibeasts. However there are many other small subjects worth photographing, such as moths, beetles, bees and wasps, spiders, flies, hoverflies, flowers, fungi and leaves.
My goal is to portray the beauty of the natural world. To this end I seek to ensure the subjects are sharp and well lit, well positioned in the frame, and all the wonderful details such as wing patterns and eyes are clear. I also try to create a pleasingly out of focus background, known as 'bokeh' - a Japanese word meaning blur.
Large Red and Common Blue Damselflies
Butterflies
Dragonflies and Damselflies
Other Invertebrates
Fungi
Flowers and Leaves
Bulgaria 2023
In early June 2023 I visited Bulgaria with the aim of doing some macro photography. As with Greece the previous year, I was amazed by both the number of species and of individual creatures.
Areas such as this are a different world from my sadly impoverished home country, the UK, where habitat destruction and intensive agricultural methods have reduced invertebrate populations to less than 10% of what they once were.
Greece 2022
In late June and early July 2022 I visited the region around Mt. Parnassos in central Greece for some macro photography, as well as a visit to the ancient ruins at Delphi.
I stayed in a lovely rural apartment surrounded by fields full of butterflies, grasshoppers, beetles and other insects, as you can see below.
