Call me crazy...

After work tonight, I spent 45 minutes photographing a plant. 133 pictures later, I'm left with these that I like. Macro lens photography on plants isn't easy. Not everything shows up in focus, which has always made it hard to take pictures of plants in the past. Not going to bore you with the plant anatomy terms (I can still name the stamen, stigma, etc), but getting them all to be in focus in a picture is hard. Considering these were taken in my office, not too shabby. I haven't really used my macro lens outside yet, I could only imagine how hard it would be to get these pics in real world situations.

And by difficult I mean you add variables such as wind, bugs bothering you, having to lay on the ground to get the right angle and to get close enough, etc. Plus, most flowers are only about ten inches off the ground, so imagine trying to get a great angle of the plant. Your camera would almost have to be in the ground to get certain angles. I haven't used my poor mans macro lenses a whole lot, so this is all new to me. Extreme close-ups of plants don't seem to work to well. They give no depth and beauty to the photo. Scoot back just enough to give some context and suddenly it looks like something interesting.

fyi, this is what the plant looks like sitting in our office. Pretty, but not very interesting, right?  Add in macro lens, proper background, and some natural lighting. Tada!