Reversing the Column: Probing Life Upside Down

To make these images, I turned the center column of my tripod upside down. Safely getting my camera into the now-upside-down ARCA-style clamp took a measure of care and dexterity. I placed the rig over a light box, and added my Laowa wide-angle macro probe lens to the camera.

Rose © Harold Davis

Each exposure was made with the front element of the lens extremely close to the flower. To expose, the lens was stopped all the way down (to f/40). But first, to critically focus, I needed to open the lens up. Wide open with this lens meant f/14, the widest aperture for this lens—and, no, f/14 is not a typo! With the built-in ring light turned on at f/14, I could see to focus.

Turning the ring light back off, and the aperture back to f/40, the actual exposures were fairly long (Rose, above, 60 seconds; Gaillardia, below, 30 seconds). With each, I used the backlighting from the light pad, but then used a very quick burst of supplemental front light from the ring light.

Gaillardia © Harold Davis

Note that in both cases the lens was inserted within the blossom, with petals curving upwards around the probe. The wide-angle nature of the lens mitigates this effect, so that you can’t really tell, and might even think the Gaillardia is essentially flat.