We're All Ears :: September Inspiration

Macro photography fascinates me. I love to see the up close and personal worlds that talented macro artists can capture. The inner workings of a flower... The secret life of bees... The unexpected textures of metal... Thankfully, with the advent of DSLR cameras and all the fun gadgets that you can buy, the world of macro photography is more accessible than ever.

I went looking for amazing macro nature shots and stumbled on a very gifted artist named Damon Clarke. His macro shots of the forest are what I wanted to share with you today, but given the fact that his work is copyrighted, I couldn't very well use them, even in good faith. But you really should check out his work at www.macrophotography.com.

Inspired by the beautiful worlds Clarke's Forest Collection, I remembered that a few years ago I took a macro photo safari of my own at Pfiffner Park on the banks of the Wisconsin River. That was to test out a set of macro filters (similar to these) for my DSLR camera. Unfortunately, my regular DSLR lens bit the dust when I decided to drop it on my studio floor (and it didn't bounce...imagine!), but I still have those macro filters and one day I will get another lens that will work with it. You just screw these filters onto the front of the lens and turn it into a macro. Of course, to replace, I did buy a more fancy macro lens, but I really loved being able to swap out the filters, and even layer them for enhanced detail. 

Now I mostly take pictures with my iPhone and I did purchase a set of Photojojo magnet snap lens, including a macro/wide angle (but it requires an extreme close up, so it is more suited to flowers and lichen than to jewelry). So this series of pictures made me pine for my damaged lens.

What I love about each of these pictures is the way they all feel like tiny worlds to me. As if I could just shrink down and fall into one to explore the terrain, like an ant scouting a location, charting a course for a brave new world. The one on the left makes me think of the banks of a wide river, like the Amazon, with its twists and turns and coursing currents. The one on the top right makes me think of aerial views of farmlands with crops planted. The one in the middle - my very favorite - feels so alien to me, as if these are dwelling places for some other interstellar race built on the top of a verdant mountain.

So, since there is a shift in the seasons upon us, I thought that these would be a fitting inspiration for September. I am really looking forward to seeing how this inspires your designs!

What inspires you about this world within a world?

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Friday, September 19th.

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