The first thing that appeals about this picture is the glorious wash of blue. It’s a great example of how a background can be used to complement a subject and provide additional information about its habitat. What’s more, sharpness is just where you want it to be, on the wings and the body. Areas of foliage beneath the butterfly are also sharp, which adds to the feeling of connection between insect and plant. The plant may not be blue in real life, but it doesn't really matter – it’s all about the mood of the picture.
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There are few things more dramatic than the battle for survival between two living things – and this dragonfly clearly has the edge over its damselfly prey. The photographer has worked hard to keep everything pin-sharp, and probably employed a technique known as focus stacking whereby a series of images covering different focusing zones is combined in post-production. Due to this extreme sharpness the picture has the feeling of a scientific record shot, but created with an artistic eye.
There’s a romance to this picture – and not just because the black-veined white butterflies are mating! The image was created at sunrise with a 180mm macro lens and an aperture of f/3.5. As a result the background is soft and dreamy, but you can make out the shapes of the scabiosa plants. The sun has created a golden glow behind the insects and this, combined with the purple, is pleasing to the eye. The focusing is also wonderfully accurate, showing off every vein on the wings and every hair on the flower stem.
There are many things to admire about this picture but, for me, it’s the placement of the butterfly that trumps them all. It would have been tempting to turn the camera on its side and create a portrait-format shot, but the photographer has bravely defied convention and positioned the subject to the right of the frame. The background shows attractive bokeh and the colour works well with the strong backlighting on the insect and flower.
Backgrounds can make or break a close-up picture, and this is a fine example of how to use one for maximum impact. The blues and purples created by the flowers make the markings on the caterpillar really stand out, while the bend of the main stem encourages the viewer’s eye to travel across the frame. The small bug on the flower head acts like a full stop preventing our eye from drifting out of the picture.
While the subject on this round was flowers, plants and insects, this image just made it through due to the crucial element of the leaf. The image hangs entirely on that as it's the leaf that has given us this incredible silhouette of a lizard. It's a fascinating image. I wish we had a few more details about how it was taken, but it's a great image nonetheless.
Flies have such a bad reputation, so it's really refreshing to see images that reveal them to be the incredible subject they are. What really makes this image so great is the single droplet of water hanging from the fly's mouth. Look close and you can see the reflections of light and a magnified view of its right foreleg.
This is such a fascinating image. The photographer found this fly seemingly trapped in the twines of a cucumber plant (although there's every chance it was just having a much-needed rest). Everything about this shot works – the colour, the composition, the subject. It's one of those strange shots that any macro photographer would be elated to happen upon.
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There’s something quite cinematic about this shot; a feeling almost certainly created by the lighting. The moss is glistening with moisture and the way the light falls on the ant’s head reveals every contour. The dust particles above the ant add to the magic, and while I’m not quite sure what is creating the purple ‘clouds’ in the sky area, I like the effect.
Of all insect subjects, ants are perhaps the most fascinating for me. Their busy day-to-day lives are something that I could sit in the garden observing all day. This shot has taken us right into the life of this ant as it takes a drink. When we get this close, we see how powerful the form of the ant is.
It’s not often we get a chance to study an insect at close quarters, but macro photography provides us with an opportunity to admire every hair and every speck of pollen on this bee. The photographer has used the inside of the flower to create a natural frame around the insect, which draws us into its world. Using an aperture of f/18 has allowed enough depth of field to keep the eyes nice and sharp.
Macro photography is often an exercise in precise focusing, and training the lens on the head to reveal every hair and eye component has certainly paid off here. This type of picture always makes me want to learn more about the biology of the subject: what are those hairs for? Can this insect smell or see the way humans do? On the downside, I’m not keen on the background, and the colour fringing on the top hairs is a little distracting, but it’s a well observed shot nonetheless.
We often associate the bokeh technique with glowing lights in the background but here we see how it can work within a natural setting. Using this technique has given the background scene a painterly quality of washed-out colours and shapes. It ultimately works to draw our attention to the basque flower, our main subject.
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**Macro photography** offers you the opportunity to explore the hidden elements of nature that would otherwise remain hidden from the naked eye. Subjects such as plants are a beautiful canvas of colour, shape and texture, and getting in close can reveal how all these disparate elements function together to form beautiful subjects. And flowers are, of course, an endless goldmine for photographers. We’re in the warmer months of the year now, meaning that your garden and local park are awash with beds of vivid colour. However, we don’t just want you to focus on plants and flowers – we also want to see your macro images of the insects and arachnids that you often find buzzing and crawling around your garden and local green spaces. Insects – whether they be wasps, ladybirds, bees or beetles – make truly fascinating subjects for photography, and we often forget just how incredible (and what great photo subjects) they are.
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A successful silhouette requires a subject with a recognisable profile, and this praying mantis certainly fits the bill. The background is a wonderful palette of orange, yellow and pink, and the sweep of the plant it’s clinging to looks like a scribble drawn across the frame – it brings a wonderful sense of movement to the shot.
Arachnids come in all shapes and sizes so it's always a pleasure to see them close up so we can relish in the details of how each species differs from the others. While many of us fear spiders, getting this close in reveals them to be an incredibly beautiful subject. The focus on the eyes here really draws us in and brings us right into the spider's world.
In this image we see how important it can be to choose your time of day wisely. As the photographer points out, this image of a damselfly was taken at sunrise when the subject was less active. This has allowed the photographer to capture a confident and technically perfect portrait of an almost alien subject.
