Heather Angel

I was lucky enough last week to go to a talk by Heather Angel at Guildford Photographic Society.  Heather gave us a beautiful slide show showing her macro and wildlife images and provided us with some much valued "pearls":

Macro:

• Work hard on backgrounds - they can make or break a photo
• If no flash - can use camera bag to cast shadow to make background black
• Use diffuser to reduce light on subject
• Metering pale or dark subjects - spot meter an average tone
• Use a reflector to bounce sun into flower centres
• Use a light tent for photographing individual flowers - produces even lighting - botanical painting effect!
• Bright colours with dark areas - use flash
• Fibre optic light good for texture
• Black velvet and plamps to create black background
• Focus stacking to create total depth of field

Wildlife/travel

• Expect the unexpected
• Meter off neutral tones if subject mainly black or white  

And of course I bought a few books, particularly in preparation for my forth coming trip to Skomer to photograph puffins :-)