It's all in the Details

As you may have figured out, I have completed my photography course, and I have no more lessons and assignments. So I have decided to search the world wide web and complete online challenges that I believe may help my skill grow. This week at Webshots the theme is "Delicate", and this also fits in with "Macro Monday" over at Sunday Stills photography. Because I am enraptured with my new wide-angle lens, I thought it would be the perfect excuse to get it stuck in all kinds of unreasonable places, and see what it could do.



When I hear the word delicate, I immediately think of all the tiny fragile things that my children could destroy just by looking at them, so I decided to take them with me, and filter my images according to what got decimated moments after the shutter closed. In the rest of the northern hemisphere it is snowing, but in Dubai it is still firmly beach weather, and so no snowflakes, icicles, frost patterns or flowers struggling with the weight of snow for me. I discovered that my neighbourhood is almost completely child-proof, and although full of detail, true delicacy is hard to find. And seriously, when you think of the city of Dubai, do you ever associate it with the word "delicate"?

I did find some freshly be-sprinkled grass, with beads of water hanging on for dear life, forming tiny necklaces up the blades of grass. Promptly trodden on by 7-year old and preceded with a soccer-ball to the head for mummy, who was stupidly lying in wet grass and not paying attention to the game.

Then we found marigolds, which cover our street corners in Umm Suqeim (our suburb in Dubai). We often pick them and take them home to add to salads and dry for tea (somebody told me marigold tea makes you thinner, but they lied). These particular flowers were grasped by three-year-old fingers before they were smashed and squished into a shopping bag.

Lastly we have sleeping-beauty's foot. She is quite a young sleeping beauty - only three - but she is starting early, because Prince Charmings are very difficult to find. I love these shoes. I want them. And I love this photo so much, I have made it my favourite of the week, and sent it into Rachel @ and then she snapped....But  they are very delicate, they shed tiny pieces of pink glitter like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs, and I now have one on the end of my new wide-angle lens.

All in all, a very suitable project, because the old Canon SX20 IS has a "super macro" button, so I could get within one centimeter of the subject and it would still focus beautifully for me. I found with the new Canon 450D that better images are possible, but it is a very delicate balance between a close position and appropriate zoom. Without question, one must use manual focus, because the lens gets very confused while in so close, and it needs to be told what the subject is.

If you like these ramblings but are not interested in photography, check out my other blog:
Dubai-ified