Assignment 3: Macro Photography

Laura Sharpless: Gears

My roommate's bike chain, taken on the grass outside our apartment. I got very close to the chain (probably less than an inch), using the largest aperture my camera has (3.1), to get a reasonably shallow depth of field. It was late afternoon, so using a shutter speed of 1/200 was reasonable to get the correct brightness.

I used photoshop to crop and rotate the photo (I wanted the top edge of the chain to be parallel to the edge of the photo), and did a little blurring, coloring, and burning to remove a blue-ish image from the background.

I ended up turning the bike upside down so I could get an unobstructed view of the chain and gears. I like how the focus of the photo isn't the chain, but the gears underneath the chain, also covered in grease and dirt. I think this provides a nice contrast against the clean grass of the background.