How often do you take photographs with the camera pointed straight down at the ground? I do it all the time, it is one of my favorite perspectives for close-up nature photography. There are two main reasons I like to do this.
- Shallow depth of focus is an inherent challenge when photographing subjects close-up. While I don’t always want to have everything in a photograph sharply in focus, there are scenes which benefit from having everything in focus, particularly when there is a lot of intricate detail present. With the camera pointed straight down the focus plane of the camera is parallel to the ground, making it easy to get everything at a given height off the ground nicely in focus.
- As a compositional tool looking straight down on a subject often provides a unique and interesting view. This can be used to reveal otherwise difficult to spot symmetries, repeating geometrical shapes and other interesting abstract patterns.
The symmetry of the overlapping leaves benefits from the overhead view. I also wanted to get as many of the water droplets in focus as I could.
This image is all about the spoke like arrangement of the flowers and the depth looking down into the Lupine plant. The row of leaves at the bottom of the frame being in focus as well added a counterbalance.
I really like images like this one, it does not look like much until you zoom in and start inspecting it closely. The details are fascinating. It is a small patch of moss that stood out because it was a vibrant green in the otherwise brownish landscape of early April. When you zoom in the light green mosses appear almost luminescent, and you can see innumerable tiny water droplets from a recent rain. The spiky green moss with the reddish caps are what really caught my attention, they look kinda like little evergreen trees. I believe that they are Awned Haircap Moss.
Another scene where I wanted to have as much as possible in focus so that the incredible amount of detail could be captured. The contrast of the reddish-purple leaves against the bright green of the moss is what first caught my eye, but the all the tiny hairs and the way that they support the water droplets were the story I wanted to capture in this image.
Here we have reeds at the edge of a shallow lake which have been flattened down over the course of the winter. I found the patterns created by the overlapping reeds and the subtle colors irresistible. The close in framing from above isolates the details from the larger context of the much larger patch of reeds and focuses the attention on the elements which attracted me in the first place.
Another example of a scene with loads of detail in a small area, but this time I did not want to completely isolate the main subject from its surroundings. I enjoy the early spring because the ground cover has not had a chance to obscure the intricate carpet of interwoven twigs, grasses, fallen leaves and fresh new growth. The big attractor are the early Lupine, but the surrounding details provide the context of new spring growth rising amid the previous years detritus.
When viewed from the side, these tightly clustered buds atop a single stalk were not particularly interesting. But when shot from above, with the background blurred by distance, the beauty of the symmetry and detail becomes apparent.
These young Lupine, packed in close together with their overlapping radial leaf patterns and vibrant greens, all at a similar height above the ground resulted in a wonderful abstract composition.
All images in this post were taken by the author, on the Miller Woods trail in the Indiana Dunes National Park.
Fabuloso! However, to me the “spoke” flower — you said lupine — is more about color than shape, but the shape is cool, too.
These are so beautiful, come back a little later in May to see millions of those lupines in bloom. It’s really quite amazing.