Lens-Artists Challenge#385 | Unusual Crop

This week Ritva encourages us to think outside of the normal photography constraints and push the cropping limits. In Ritva’s post, she provides many beautiful examples, one that pulled me in is the in camera crop. It is ‘easier’ to crop in post processing. This morning I woke and looked outside, in the bright morning light I could see all the trees in our back yard beautifully frosted over. I felt inspired.

Inspired to go outside and take photos of the frost on the various trees and crop in camera, up close. Very close with my 180mm macro lens. I haven’t even downloaded the images yet, as I am starting this weeks challenge blog…

This is when I know Ive been beautifully creatively inspired. When I read the challenge yesterday, I thought of our day yesterday, however it wasn’t the right set of photos to use, I had cropped in post processing, from our snowmobile ride, great photos but not the ones.

I took our dog outside with me and this time ventured to our back yard – with deep snow I carefully walked across the snowmobile trail to not sink 😉 Downloading and going through the images, I have gasped multiple times. I think I can honestly say, that I have never pushed myself with my macro shots this much – the beauty… for a challenge, I trusted and just let the artistic creativity flow. My heart is boundlessly happy with the results!!! With over 70 photos, this now poses my next challenge 😉

Close up, in camera crop of the snowmobile ski track in the snow.

Ive had issue with getting macro in focus before, from a further back distance, and not with the 180mm, this morning however, it flowed perfectly and I am thrilled with the results.

A close in camera crop of a tiny small dried up leaf on the tree, beautifully edged with frost.

One of the first ones, and this one had me in awe…

These challenges are helping me embrace a side of abstract I haven’t before, close up crop sometimes means focus falls where you hadn’t initially planned and most times, this is the magic of trust!

This dried up little leaf isn’t that big and yet close up in frame, it hangs proud displaying the beautiful winter frost.

Fill the camera frame with frost on the glass deck railings.

Close up of the snow.

This was so much fun – it felt like I was pushing my normal edges for macro photography and the results, my heart is so creatively happy!

To end this off, my husband had a great idea when I told him the theme… or does it mean a close crop – to you… I was slightly puzzled at first and then realized last weekend I have a picture of us snowmobiling on a trail that – goes through a crop of corn still standing!

If you would like to join in for this weeks Lens-Artists Challenge, please be sure to use the Lens-Artists tag in your blog so everyone can see it! I love how inspiring these challenges have been for me and look forward to them each week! For more information on the Lens-Artists Challenge see here!

I appreciate Ritva’s closing message in this week’s challenge…

“Make sure to return on Saturday, February 21, at noon Eastern Time for an exciting new challenge from Patti at Pilotfishblog. I hope you’ll be there to join us! In the meantime, let’s keep exploring, broadening our horizons, and maintaining a positive mindset.” Ritva