When I got my Lumix I played around with the Macro mode and was absolutely smitten. I loved seeing things, ordinary things, from a completely fresh perspective. It was like a whole other world.
But then my husband surprised me with a macro lens for my iPhone. He does love a gadget, even vicariously. It arrived yesterday.
I'm going to digress for a wee bit now. We are both still under the weather a bit..Will this cough EVER go away?
I had a meeting in town and we met up for dinner, Pizza Express. I love going out for anything either drinkable or edible. I get it from my gran. She always went for a cup of tea every time she went shopping. A habit I continue to this day. I get a wee thrill, even if it's a McDonalds or a greasy spoon, I still love it. I'm a simple soul. My husband knows me well and will indulge me. I honestly couldn't face cooking so Pizza Express it was.
So as soon as we got home I was presented with my new lens. Its a 'Ztylus, Revolver Lens Attachment'. Very simple and easy to clink onto the phone. The initial instructions were great.
After that it got a bit hazy. As in there was no other information. But You tube is an amazing thing, we soon (Well, I say 'we', really it was Mr M) found a review and after that I was flying.
This lens is better than the macro setting on my camera, at least that's my first impression.
The first pic I took was of the arm of my chair. A rather tasteful, muted, closely woven tartan cover chair (ahem). This is what happened.
We both almost recoiled in shock.
But it was getting a bit too dark and we were both exhausted and a had some stuff to do around the house. So I put it away until today.
Another wee digression, Archie is still wearing his cone of shame so requires supervision in the garden. No walks until we've had the all clear from the vet. Luckily I have a rather large rambling garden. So he's never bored and can run around with me to his wee hearts content. He uses his cone to scoop up gravel and all sorts of stuff. I had to kiss a clump of carnations goodbye yesterday as he managed to dig 'em up and chew on them in the blink of an eye! I've taken to having my coffee sitting on the front steps, sometimes huddled under a brolly, watching him.
So I let him play about me as I played with my camera. Which may have added to the general fuzziness of some of these photos, he likes being the center of my world, does Archie! He's in for a shock after Christmas.
I contented myself with trying to get photo's of dew drops on the leaves. It's not as easy as you'd think, even though it's been made as simple as is possible. But because you are taking pics of such small things every movement you make is amplified on the camera. A bit like shaky binoculars. I was attempting to take freestyle pics of plants which were moving in the breeze. So initially I was a bit frustrated. But I managed to take some passibly good photos.
When I looked at them on my computer I could see how out of focus they were or just focused incorrectly, But that's okay. I think I'm going to enjoy practising.
I then spotted my old mossy garden wall, so off I went to see what that looked like under the macrolens.
It's a whole other planet on there. I caught pics of things I couldn't see with the naked eye. Little heart shaped funghi, tiny clumps of moss. Amazing textures and colours.
This world we live in is really a wonderful and spectacular place.
The thing I've found though with photography and with Instagram, is that so many people do take it rather seriously. I'm very obviously an amateur, I'm not trying to convey a message, find myself, tell a story or indeed present myself in any particular way. There's nothing wrong with doing any of those things in fact I'm wondering if I should, more to the point I'm wondering if I want to do that. I don't think I do.
My IG gallery is a miscellaneous collection of selfies, pics of the cats and dog, a diary of what I've been up to, including the cliched food pics, and some arty experiments. But then, I think, if you look at my gallery you'd find out a lot about me as a person.
Although at the minute it'll be inundated with close up photo's of my garden!!
