How to Shoot Naked Leaves
By Brendan Baker
1 May 2008
This technique couldn't be simpler, but has helped me get some great macro shots of nature's beauty.
You'll need:
1 camera. Any camera should work, so long as it has manual focus and settings (exposure and F-stops)
1 roll of tape. Clear scotch tape probably woks best, although all I had in my Canadian-ness was duct tape.
1 piece of clean, white paper
1 tripod or tripod substitute (table, books, really, really still dog, etc...)
1 bucket or tupperware container
Let's get to it!
1) Go for a hike.
Get out and enjoy life. You're on a mission here to get bits of interesting plants, leaves and flowers. My favorites are leaves of all colours, fairly thin leaves, and those with a lot of cellular detail. If you're not sure, just take a snippet and throw it in your bucket. But try to keep them in good shape as you do it.
2. Set up your paper.
Tape your paper to a window. Couldn't be simpler. Make sure to pick a window with a decent amount of light though, either in direct sunlight or a very bright cloudy day.
3. Secure your leaf.
I've used duct tape because it's all I had. I imagine scotch tape would work better, or even having the leaves hung by fishing line. The big thing here is to make sure they won't swing or wave in the wind. You'll need your leaf to be absolutely still.
3. Set up the camera.
Attach the camera to your tripod/table/books/dog. The fun part here is moving the leaf around the frame and zooming in and out to get the right effect (more on that later).
4. Shoot.
This is where you'll need at least some basic manual camera skills. I tend to move the camera almost as close as I can get without losing focus range. I then very carefully focus on the part of the leaf I want. Then I massively overexpose it, finessing the exposure settings until I get the right light balance. You want your white paper sheet to wash out completely, and for the leaf to reveal a pleasing internal texture (and maybe some hidden colours if you're lucky). Two more things to remember: for large prints later on, remember to set the camera to the highest compression quality possible (high quality or super HQ, and fine), and use 100 or 200 as a film speed. This will let you get enough good quality detail.
5. Play.
Leaves can be placed flat or not. If flat, you'll probably want to use a large F-setting, like F-11 or above, to capture as much of the detail as possible (especially if your focus is slightly off). If your leaf is not flat, it may be fun to use a really low F-setting (like F-2) to get a low focal range. Moving your focal point around on the leaf can then completely change the feel of the shot.
It is quite easy to quickly produce something 'neat', that you might see being sold framed for 15 bucks in IKEA. This will impress your friends, with intricate close-up shots of leaves. Give them out framed as Christmas presents.
After getting to that level, try to play with the layout, positioning and focus to get more meaningful results. Leaves can be very evocative, and the form can easily imply something else entirely, or communicate some emotion that leaves wouldn't ordinarily show. This is the true beauty of the technique, that is easily allows us to experiment artistically, using a few pieces of tape, some leaves and a dog.
Enjoy.
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