Macro Photography Workshops in Surrey & Hampshire

During lockdown, I lost count of the amount of people who threw confused looks in my direction as they saw me crouched down in front of nettles, grasses and various bushes with my camera. Some mustered the courage to come and ask what I was up to and looked no less confused when I said looking for insects”.

Bush cricket

Having discovered the world of macro photography a number of years ago, I feel the same way towards those people – how can you walk past all these bushes and not explore the hidden world inside?

Green-eyed flower bee

It’s a world that, in my humble opinion, we don’t pay attention to and I love to explore it, particularly during the summer months, seeing what’s living in different flora and watching the behaviour of these tiny insects - there is no better way to capture it than with a macro lens. There is not one way of doing things when it comes to macro photography and learning the basic techniques enables you to deal with different subjects, lighting and locations.

Dock bug

Recently, I ran our first macro photography workshop with four clients in a nature reserve in Surrey and what a great day we had! Due to the recent rainfall, we were able to practice new techniques initially with the newly emerged fungi and mosses, giving us some lovely examples of how to isolate particular features in a very small area, and explore the different options available with various light sources. Natural light can make for some stunning images, but more often than not, flash or another light source is needed to achieve the desired effect.

Jelly antler fungi

After the initial hour or two practicing on various subjects and getting used to the different techniques, the dappled sunshine started to shine through the trees, adding some beautiful morning light to the rhododendron bushes and across the forest floor. Where the leaves had sat empty just five minutes before, there were suddenly numerous leafhoppers and shield bugs on a huge number of leaves soaking up the sunshine. This is a great time to capture images of them as they tend to stay reasonably still as they wake up. We were blessed with no wind and great light, so were able to get some lovely shots.

Green blue leafhopper

The rest of the morning was spent exploring these bushes and looking for more insects as well as finding great macro subjects, such as oak spangle leaf galls. We then moved on through the forest, stopping for some more fungi specimens on the way to the meadow. The goal in the meadow was to find more insects and we were not disappointed. We discovered spiders of all sizes, from tiny jumping spiders to quite large raft spiders, some with prey in their webs, which makes for fantastic images. A rustle on a birch log was followed by around four to five common lizards popping out to (briefly!) enjoy the sunshine and as we were looking for them, we spotted a female ichneumon wasp ovipositing on the log. Despite heading into autumn, there was plenty out there to keep us busy and hopefully we’ll be able to continue running these throughout the year.

Male zebra jumping spider

Common lizard

If you’re intrigued, just starting out with macro or want to learn some different techniques, join us on a workshop soon by registering your interest.