[Perception]

It might sound like a paradox, but taking an extreme close up of an object actually transcends our usual perception of it. This is the beauty of Macro Photography. It encourages the viewer to utilize a wider range of cognitive awareness to see what is not commonly revealed.

Most objects are only fleetly observed as we undertake our daily duties and they enter our consciousness as fundamental signs. Therefore, we may pass a garden and mentally register a flower by its relationship and opposition to other phenomenon. However, without stopping to look more closely, we would find it difficult to add further definition to that flower other than attaching superficial variables such as color, species or size. Our everyday existence is routinely limited to generalizations and a more direct and penetrating perception of the forms we encounter is seldom realized.  Even, “I saw a really beautiful flower today”, is a rhetorical expression in as much as it adds nothing to our established conception except the notion of ‘beauty’, which is ultimately relative and without definite meaning.

What macro photograph does, however, is challenge both the preconceived visual signs and the passive awareness with which we commonly view an object. By focusing on an extremely limited detail, an alternative way of perceiving is abstracted from the form. So we find a luminous jungle at the center of a small orchid. Or a tiny five millimeter bud lost in an ocean of blue (which is, in reality, an optical illusion created by unnaturally reduced depth of field). 

In my opinion, Macro achieves what all good photography should. That is, it offers an alternative representation of the concrete world rather than simply illustrating that which is easily perceived by the naked eye. The viewer is encouraged to re-evaluate their predetermined conceptions by entering an alternative vision which transforms the usual signs by way of extreme closeness. 

Putting the semiotic critique aside, there is another aspect of this photographic genre that can be appreciated more by the photographer that the viewer. Because of the minimal focal range involved when opening the aperture of the macro lens to f2.8, a slight movement in either the camera or the subject will result in a shifting of focus. At such close proximity, this shift will produce completely different images. This means that the majority of Macro Photography is what the Dada artists of the 1930s referred to as a ‘happy accident’. We can take numerous shots of a single object and confirm the results on the camera display, but it is not until we upload the images onto a larger computer screen that we can truly observe the details and accuracy of focus. If we were photographing a flower, for example, some shots might show a petal or stigma in sharp focus, while others accentuate a filament or even just a drop of water on an anther.

Regardless of the amount of foresight or planning one may put into the execution of a macro shot, the final result depends primarily (and wonderfully) on chance. This chaotic randomness is what makes Macro Photography a unique and fulfilling art form. So go out and try for yourself this method of getting away from reality by getting closer to it.