In shooting macro, photographers like me will often center on one relatively clear subject with the background or periphery intentionally blurred. The image below is one I shot as part of Amy Horn's Macro Photography Workshop. I like it, and she seemed to also..

Here is my way of understanding why clear in a sea of "soft" focus or un-focus has an aesthetic appeal.

Perhaps you, like me, have seen a fantasy film, for instance, in which someone had apparently vanished from this world, only to reappear. But how do filmmakers create a real mystery surrounding that reappearance? Perhaps the reappeared person walks through dense mist. At first, the mist fills the frame completely- no person to be seen. When the person does appear, it climaxes the dramatic moment.

I think a great macro shot captures that sense of mystery in surrounding the focal subject with haze or a misty feel.

The photo below represents a particular technique:

The photograph above shows what I think is catmint growing in Viola's Garden, Flagstaff. To get this effect I used "shoot through."

Here is what I understand what Amy Horn's assignment by that name during the Workshop: Rather than shooting through a total obstruction (one definition), Amy speaks of shooting throubgh something that forms a "natural frame" around the object in focus. The frame should be super close to the lens but not its focus, and not IN focus. The real subject is beyond that blur, framed by the blur.

If you like these images and want to order a print or download, I will CUSTOM-DESIGN one JUST FOR YOU. Write me using the contact form If you decide my representation of the techniques is not to your liking,

I already knew this, but Amy is an excellent teacher. On 7/13, she led six participants through a series of "challenges." I enjoyed the last one the most: "Try to do something unique." I.e., take a photograph from an angle, or with a technique, that hasn't been tried over and over.

The real trick to macro, and its genius I think, takes place in camera, not in editing or post-production: leaving sharp the part of the image I want you to notice most, and in an aesthetically pleasing way blurring the rest. In a series of shots / edits of this dahlia, I allowed the background to be just that, and blurred, and I made sure the front and middle of the image was in focus.

On Sunday, July 13 I will join others participating in photographer and teacher Amy Horn’s Viola’s Macro Photography workshop. I am impatient for the day! Also a bit nervous. I have bought a diffuser and reflector (with a gold side and a silver side) a stand for those two items, and a close-up filter. Today I shot one of my favorite subjects- luckily, one of the most conveniently accessible. That is our spider plant and its exuberant blooming, which has already lasted more than two months. whose I have posted two time-lapse videos relevant here. Both feature the flowers on our spider plant, one whose time-compressing nature reveals what our naked eye cannot perceive- the ever-so-slow opening (one time-lapse video) and closing (the other video.) Today I was shooting buds instead of flowers. I focused on the buds that are about to burst open. Their inner flower is showing! I was experimenting with three lenses/ lens-plus-filter configurations. (Please visit my folder called "Macro"!)

The three sections of this post below each contains the sample-image of roughly the same subject and lighting. I have arranged the three configurations illustrated below from iffiest to best.

The first two represent a fusion of lens and filter. I start with the first configuration—the iffiest.

It is the Olympus 12-40mm F4.0 lens plus a Raynox DCR-250 snap-on closeup filter. The advantage of this configuration is distance. Say you want to photograph a flower being visited by a bumblebee. The bee is easily scared off the flower when this photographer gets as close as the 30mm prime lens (in itself the third configuration below) requires. This snap-on filter boasts a 2.5x magnification when used with lenses like my 12-40mm. Experience confirms that, with the filter on the end, the lens can be twice the distance from the subject as the lens by itself allows. We are talking about the minimum focal distance, the closest distance at which the lens is able to focus sharply.

The disadvantage to perhaps all closeup filters that putting them between your lens and your subject decreases image quality. A very careful look at the first image shows aberrations at the edges of the bud.

The second section below illustrates the intermediate performance ranking. In general the old screw-on closeup filter on my 40-150mm lens produces somewhat sharper images, with less aberration at the edges of the bud.

And now the third and final configuration. I have said that putting anything, especially a filter, between lens and subject will decrease image quality. Remove that and you get the sharpest image of the three. I might scare away that bumblebee, but if I am only wanting to photograph the flower, the true macro lens is my best option.

I have offered you a lesson in macro photography, or closeup photography that approaches the definition of a macro lens (one that involves no size loss between the subject and its capture-size, a 1:1 magnification ratio.)

Should you avoid closeup filters? Not if you want to capture skittish insects, for example.

Or I could say YES, if you can afford a lens like the OM System 90mm macro prime.

Disclaimer: Amy Horn has no responsibility for the content of this blog post, let alone for mistakes I undoubtedly made. What is more, on a happy note, is that I can return from the Amy Horn Macro Workshop on 7/13/25 with corrections, new insights, and newly critiqued (and then revised) images!