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Camera
College
Creative close-ups
with a seasonal twist
Give tired decorations a new lease of life with easy techniques you
can try today, even if you have minimal equipment and little timeBefore you pack away
your Christmas
decorations, why not take
advantage of the opportunity
to shoot some arty close-ups?
There’s a host of small-scale
creative projects you can try,
including using Christmas lights
to produce a beautiful bokeh
background; building miniaturedioramas (complete with flour
for snow); and shooting baubles
and tinsel refracted in water
drops. Whether you’re looking to
test out a new photography idea
or shoot the cover of your cards
for next Christmas, now’s the
perfect time to do it.
The traditional kit for close-
up photography is going to beuseful for this type of work.
A lens that’s capable of focusing
close is obviously a benefit, and
a macro lens that’s capable of
recording a subject at half-life-
size or life-size will open up
more options. Lenses with
longer focal lengths can help
you to create backgrounds with
more impact, as out-of-focusareas will appear larger relative
to the subject in the foreground.
So, if you have the room to
move, try using focal lengths
in the region of 80-100mm
rather than a wide-angle lens.
A tripod is a good thing to
have to hand, as you’ll often
have to deal with low light and
longer exposure times when
you’re shooting indoors. High-
end modern cameras and
lenses offer incredible levels
of image stabilisation (you
get up to eight stops of shake
reduction with the Canon EOS
R6 and a compatible RF lens,
for example), but workingMarcus
HawkinsPhotographer and
writer Marcus is a
former editor of
Digital CameraThe complete guide to modern photography
Capture a wintry feel with
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