In Search for the Inconspicuous ~ Macro Art

When you have been challenged to take pictures on a specific theme, and you cannot deliver what you initially intended, you've got to get out of the box. Way out of it.

@agniese challenged me last week to do a series of photos on Beauty of Maturity. My first and obvious idea was to take pictures of elderly couples holding each other's hands, but after spending several hours roaming the streets on Sunday, I had only one such photo taken at a shitty-looking parking lot. Not good, considering that the deadline was nearing and I hadn't thought of a plan B. I passed by the nearest Starbucks for a cup of decaf Americano, and I started walking back home.

An hour later, I was struck by the brilliant idea to photograph my old leather boots. You may wonder what maturity has to do with boots and leather. Well, the latter supposedly gets better with age (I've read so somewhere, sometime ago), so there's an indirect link there.

I decided to take all shots with my relatively new Lensbaby velvet 56mm f/1.6 lens, which has some great macro capabilities. Plus, manual focus makes me slow down, think about the shot, and immerse myself in what I am doing. I didn't want to have any of the glowing effects that the Lensbaby creates at wide apertures, so I stopped the lens down to f/8. My Lumix G80 was mounted on a tripod during the whole time, and I also used my Yongnuo LED wand to lit the subjects and create some cool shadows.

Bonus photo. No, my boots don't smell like cheese.

Why did I spend a whole day trying to photograph the obvious when I should have approached the challenge from another angle right from the beginning?

Thank you for stopping by!
Dan

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There are no behind the scenes shots this time