Home
Explore
Collections
Lensbaby
Clients
Photographer Resources
Commercial Work
Buy Prints
Behind the Lens
Editorial
exhibitions
Recognition
Contact
Socal Media

MARBLE GLOW

Macro Fun with Lensbaby's Velvet 85, Twist 60, Sweet 50 and Sol 45

Marble Glow project was essentially a resurrection of an old series I made about four years ago where I photographed close ups of colored silica gel crystals with my 50mm and macro filters. It was so much fun I couldn’t resist picking it back up for a lensbaby project, because I knew that the final outcome of each image would have interesting variations depending on which one of their lenses I used.

In order for the finished project to be somewhat cohesive, I used only one setup- I laid a large mirror on my kitchen counter, poured water over it and then placed the marbles on top of that. Rearranging the marbles in different patterns with all the different optics resulted in shots that were colorful, dreamy, and a tad psychedelic.

So with a macro converter on the Sweet 50, screw on macro filters for the Sol 45 and Twist 60, and the Velvet 85 being amazing all by itself, I set out to see how I could make a fun series with something as ordinary as a marble.

The biggest challenge of this project was nailing focus. Because I was using manual lenses while working close up with such a shallow depth of field, it was really tricky getting the right part of the image clear, especially when using the lenses that had a tilting optic, or screw-on macro filters that inevitably removed some of the clarity.

Many times I would have the marbles positioned the way I wanted, but it would take several tries until I’d finally get the shot just right.

The fun part was actually not setting up the foreground as much as it was coordinating the background- It became paramount to arrange the marbles that were out of focus just as strategically as it was the ones that were in focus, or else the color would clash, or I’d be left with gaping, unwanted dark spaces in the background.

I found that the Velvet 85’s results were pretty predictable. This was in stark contrast to the Twist 60, Sweet 50 and Sol 45, which had all kinds of different outcomes depending on how many macro filters I used, the perspective, the orient of the frame and whether or not I had the lens tilted

One cool thing I discovered with this series is that using macro filters and converters on the Twist 60, the Sweet 50 and the Sol 45 enabled them to be used in less restrictive ways than normal, giving me a versatility that I was not expecting. I thought for sure that each lens would have similar results, but this was far from the case, even with the Velvet 85.

My hope for this project was to see the ordinary in new, beautiful and mesmerizing ways, and have lots of fun in the process. Thanks to Lensbaby, I got just what I wanted.