The first two weeks of July I was on a road trip filming, driving and not sleeping very much. It was a rad experience and I got a ton of great photos and video for an upcoming series and magazine from DB Skimboards. Long hours and no-days off are all part of the job and that is why down time is so important.
The only issue with downtime at my job is I still want to capture photos everyday. I finally got a few days off and decided in-between sleeping / relaxing I would only use my Nikon D7100 and 105mm f2.8 macro lens. It was fun to focus only on the little things with a camera.
I started off capturing some flowers right outside of my apartment in Capitol Hill while walking my dog Charlie. Flowers are an easy subject to capture with a macro lens and usually a crowd pleaser.
I know I look like a crazy person when I stop walking my dog and sometimes lay on the ground to capture a photo of a flower and/or weed, but it is worth it.
The cool part about this post is everyone of these photos was captured within one block from my apartment. It just goes to show you how many different and unique type of photos are out there if you stop and look around.
Spiders are all over my apartment building and one night while walking up to my apartment I noticed one of them had spun a web perfectly below a light. Naturally I grabbed the macro lens and captured a few photos. When I got close to the spider it jumped away, but I did manage to capture the photo below. Then I went back to sleeping…
Sunday morning I went skimboarding at Richmond Beach Saltwater Park and proclaimed on the Internet I was not going to take one photo.
I lied. I was just minding my own business riding a skimboard when I noticed this perfect little sand bar with rolling waves. I could not resist.
I ran back to the car to grab the macro lens and laid in the water trying to capture the most gnarly barrel a Lego surfer or Ant-Man could ask for.
I love how the seaweed underneath these little waves changed the color of the water to a blue/green hue.
I finished off the weekend photo macro photo binge by nerding out with a few off camera speed lights, action figures and Legos.
I have found capturing toy photos with flashes has really improved my lighting skills and has helped me come up with new dynamic ways to light certain situations.
During this shoot I stumbled upon something with my Nikon D7100. I realized that there are a ton of dead pixels in my D7100 now (about 54 to be exact). I tried to fix the pixels with camera raw and lightroom with no luck. I even updated the camera firmware and cleaned the sensor with no improvement on the dead pixel issue. That being said this is probably the last set of photos you will see from any of my Nikon gear (I will be selling some lenses soon). I also own a Canon 7D Mark II and a 5D Mark II and I primarily used my Nikon camera with a macro 105mm macro and a 10.5mm fisheye. I will be looking to replace both of those lenses with the Canon equivalents soon and most likely upgrading my 5D to a Mark III.
Now that my rant above is finished it is sad to say goodbye Nikon. It was a quality 10 year run since my switch from Minolta in 2005. I am all in with Canon now and it’s time to figure out what camera to upgrade to…the 5D Mark III or the 1DX? But that is a whole separate discussion.
Anyways, it was a great to explore the world with a macro lens and get the creative juices going again. I plan on working on some more toy-macro photo projects when the weather changes along with trying out some new rain photo techniques. In the meantime, I will be waiting for that Canon 100m f2.8 to show up.
If you are interested in any prints or commercial use of these photos feel free to email me at matt@equalmotion.com and checkout all the ways to view my work and follow along below.
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