Backyard Botanicals
Ian Plant takes a break from world travels with abstract macro photography via his Tamron 90mm F2.8 lens.
Author: Jenn Gidman
Images: Ian Plant
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Ian Plant takes a break from world travels with abstract macro photography via his Tamron 90mm F2.8 lens.
At any given moment, Ian Plant can be found exploring the volcanoes of Iceland, heading out on a Kenyan safari, or getting up close and personal with Indonesia’s Komodo dragons. Still, even a photographer primed for global adventures needs some homegrown downtime, which is why Ian Plant recently dabbled in some macro plant photography in his own backyard.
“Taking these types of photos was definitely a bit of a mental break from my usual work,” Ian says. “I always think it’s a good idea to enhance your skills as a photographer, and to advance as an artist to try something outside your normal comfort zone. It forces you to see the world in new and creative ways. I’m always looking for opportunities to try something I haven’t done before, or that I haven’t done as much as the landscape and wildlife photography that I’m mainly focused on.”
Ian used the Tamron 90mm F/2.8 Di III VXD M1:1 mid-telephoto macro lens for his macro meanderings. “This Tamron lens seemed different from the macro lenses I’ve used in the past,” he says. “At just over 22 ounces, it seemed a lot lighter and more compact, which I really appreciated. Plus, I was shooting everything at F2.8, really leaning heavily into the selective-focus effect, which of course gets more significant when you’re working at close-focusing distances. The ability to have just a small part of the macro scene in focus and everything else intentionally blurred is where I think the magic is for macro photography.”
Ian’s images with the Tamron F2.8, using a mix of all-natural light and light passed through a diffuser, put his creativity to the test, since most of the plants in his backyard and garden were more generic than exotic. “I wasn’t seeking plants that stood out the most or trying to photograph the most colorful flowers,” he says. “I was really just taking a very close look at some of the most ‘regular’ plants I could find, searching for the intersection of light and composition. And so I was able to take these rather mundane plants and find something significant and artistic in each, based on the lighting situation.”
Selective focus to draw out some of the more compelling elements helped Ian pull together his compositions. “The trick with selective focus is trying to figure out what should be in focus and what should be blurred, kind of like wildlife photography,” he notes. “When you’re crafting these abstract macro shots, you can play around and try focusing in different places—seeing what you like best, but also what produces a visual design in which the shapes relate to one another in the most pleasing way.”
Stumbling across plants and flowers populated with water drops is another way to add some aesthetic oomph to your images. “The drops seen here were all perfectly natural,” Ian says. “I went out early in the morning, when there was still some dew on the plants, and took photos of them before the sun got high enough and the dew began to evaporate. If you don’t have that kind of organic situation, mix a little glycerin with some water in a small spray bottle and then spray the plants. The glycerin helps make the water beads look bigger and stronger.”
In post-processing, Ian does a light edit for his macro work. “When I’m working with good, contrasty light, my editing mainly leans into that contrast,” he says. “Sometimes what I’ll do is make the shadows a little darker so that the sunlit portions of the scene stand out more and the compositional shapes are more apparent to the viewer. But when I’ve got that good light and have some decent compositions in mind, my editing process is actually quite simple and straightforward. I don’t have to do anything fancy to bring my artistic vision to life.”
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