I admit: this genius idea isn’t my own. I discovered this tip for macro photography on Alisa Burke’s blog. It involves reversing your lens and holding it tight against the camera body to avoid light leaks—and then getting really close to your subject. I expect the method will differ depending on the lens that you use, but I went ahead and tried it in our garden with my 50mm f/1.4 fixed lens.
In order: red clover, Queen Anne’s Lace, garlic pulled fresh from the dirt, Chicory flower.
I played it safe by experimenting with flowers (the most cliche of macro subjects!). But now I am eyeing rust, dust, eyeballs. The effect is the same as an incredibly high aperture, but I’m not actually sure about the physics of light passing through a reversed lens.
I was reminded how important it is to experiment with your tools—to break rules and ignore all the “tips” on how to use things properly. I talk a lot about doing that politically, but sometimes I forget to do that on a small scale, especially with things like cooking or photography. That’s the kind of experimentation that turns out brilliant ideas like this one.
