I love my macro lens. Macro photography enables the photographer to get close to subjects that would otherwise be very difficult, if not impossible to, properly document. This new perspective results in a new way of seeing things that I’d otherwise not even notice. I remember one of the first photographs I shot with the lens was of three thumbtacks I had sticking in the underside of a wooden bookshelf. It was something that I had passed by thousands of times before, but given it no attention. The photo I shot managed to transform these benign thumbtacks into something that looked very different. I mean, they were still just thumbtacks and weren’t that interesting in their own right, but the lens enabled me to shoot them in an otherwise unobtainable perspective and that itself was what was interesting. The subject being so close is what transformed things from boring to interesting. It was as if I had been shrunk down to the size of the thumbtacks.

Inanimate objects are one thing, but insects are a completely different matter. It takes more patience to compose a shot involving a butterfly or something else that is timid and fast. Focusing with a macro lens takes more time than a regular lens and light, especially when you have a moving subject, is a necessity. The attached gallery is a collection of my favourite insect photos taken with the macro lens. I think that the transformation between otherwise ignorable to fantastic is best illustrated with insects. The butterfly photo, for example, looks as if the subject is in an alien landscape due to the magnified flower petals. The detail of the spiders or the eyes of the dragonfly look striking when viewed up close, in contrast to the loss of detail we experience when seeing these creatures from out larger, day to day, perspective. I remember the damselfly the most. I wasn’t quick enough to shoot the damselfly and a mosquito started to annoy me by buzzing next to my ear. The damselfly proceeded to take flight, swoop next to my head, catch the mosquito and then land back where it was. A simple thumbtack will never have such a backstory.

And, yes, the category insect photography contains spiders. Deal with it.