Macro in BloomLiz Huston captures intimate shots of stargazer lilies with the Tamron SP 90mm lens. |
Article By Jennifer Gidman Images by Liz Huston |
Liz Huston started her photography career shooting bands, actors, and weddings on the West Coast, but it’s been alternative and fine art where the mainly self-taught photographer from Venice, California, has found her artistic footing: Since her shift, she’s published three books of fine-art photography, with a fourth due out in 2012. |
It’s no surprise, then, that her experimentation with macro photography ventures into the ethereal. “Dreamy and artsy is what I do!” she laughs. Huston used the Tamron SP 90mm macro lens — with its fast f/2.8 maximum aperture and 1:1 lifesize ratio for precise closeup shooting — for a recent series focusing on stargazer lilies, capturing her signature look using a relatively new perspective. |
“I haven’t had a macro lens in so long,” she says. “It was so fun to get up close again. I shot a whole series of mounted butterflies and dragonflies, and I also took the lens to the last wedding I shot to do some detail work. However, I wanted to photograph something that really appeals to me so I could fall in love with this new piece of equipment through my subject. I decided to document the process of stargazer lilies opening and then closing up.” |
The series of stunning blooms was shot over the course of a week in Huston’s apartment. “I created a little studio on my kitchen counter,” she says. “I set up white foamcor underneath the cabinets; it wasn’t superthick foamcor, so it had a slight bend to it.” |
Huston shot at different times of the day to capture the stargazer lilies in their various states, but typically she worked in the late afternoon. “I didn’t have any overhead lights on,” she explains. “The flowers were near a window, so there was a little sunlight, but it was pretty well diffused because of the curtains on the window. There was never any direct sunlight coming in — the natural light was more ambient.” |
Her tried-and-true Ray Flash ringflash is a tool she recommends to any photographer shooting macro. “It’s only a couple of hundred dollars and attaches right to your flash,” she says. “It’s essentially a ring of shadowless light around your macro lens. When you’re getting that close — and I was getting as close as half an inch to these flowers — shadowless light is really important, because the shadow of the camera could obscure what you’re trying to shoot.” |
Shooting white specimens on white foamcor presented photographic challenges, but thanks to digital technology, Huston had the capability to overcome this imaging adversity. “With the zone system, a digital camera reads five of the zones,” she explains. “Three of those five spots are in the white realm. White on white is actually more forgiving than black on black: I made sure that everything I shot was either spot-on exposure-wise or slight overexposed so I could pull in more detail in those whites.” |
Huston shot all her stargazer images at 1/60th of a second at 400 ISO; only the f-stops changed depending on the particular flower and look she was trying to achieve. “In the case of one of the lilies, I was looking at the pink inside the flower as a brushstroke,” she says. “It’s an abstract way to view that flower, but I really wanted to play with that idea and get into the movement of the flower and follow that brushstroke. The 90mm’s f/2.8 aperture allowed me to limit the focus to a very specific area so I could do that. I was also pleased I didn’t get the vignetting I sometimes get with my wider lenses.” |
Perhaps the most critical piece of advice Huston can offer when shooting macro, whether it’s insects or irises, is to slow down and take in the moment. “With digital, everyone’s just shooting rapid fire,” she says. “With macro photography, you have to be a little more present and involved — it’s more intimate. I want to go at a more relaxed pace and really take everything in.” |
For more information on Liz Huston’s work, go to http://www.photomonium.net/. |
$50 rebate on the SP 90mm lens good through 8/31/11. |