Frosty Morning Macro Photography

This morning, I woke up with an urge to shoot some macro photography. The weather has been crazy at night, with temperatures dropping and creating these frosty mornings. I’ve been wanting to practice macro, so when I looked outside and saw the frost sparkling in the early light, I knew it was the perfect occasion.

I’ve always liked macro photography—it’s like stepping into a new world. You start seeing things you’d never notice with the naked eye. Today, though, I wasn’t sure what I’d find. Our backyard isn’t exactly full of plants or insects. We treat for pests because of the chickens and dogs; otherwise, we’d be overrun with ticks. But something about the frost covering everything made me curious, so I grabbed my camera and headed out.

The weather has been very Texan lately. Hot during the day, freezing at night. That frost was exactly what I was hoping for—thin, delicate layers of ice covering the grass and some plants. Some of it had already started melting, leaving behind water droplets that caught the light. Those were interesting, but I was after something more—maybe a flower still covered in frost, or even a bug if I was lucky.
I quickly realized how challenging macro photography can be. Staying still long enough to get a clear shot is tough, and my body doesn’t exactly make it easy. My grandma used to say I was “electrical,” always moving, always restless. Macro requires a calm I’m still learning to find.

I’m new to photography, and while I understand the basics, like the exposure triangle, putting it all together in real-life situations is another story. Handholding the camera at such high apertures makes it hard to see much through the viewfinder, and my hands aren’t as steady as I’d like them to be. But I guess the more I shoot, the better I’ll get at it.

One thing that clicked for me today was how important ISO is, especially in low light. I’ve always been hesitant to bump it up past 100, but without increasing it, I had to rely too much on flash. And with apertures like f/16 to keep everything in focus, you need a lot of light. The flash helped, but it also created this strong separation between the subject and the background, which worked in some shots but wasn’t what I wanted for all of them.

The details in the images were amazing, though—the frost looked like tiny crystals, and the colors were more vibrant than I expected. But I realized that I want to capture more of the environment, not just the subject. I need to experiment more with raising the ISO and using less flash power to balance the exposure. That way, I can keep some of that natural light and still make the subject pop.
I still have a lot to learn. Macro photography is such a delicate art, and it’s going to take time to find my rhythm. But that’s part of the fun, right? Every time I go out, I discover something new—not just about photography, but about how I see the world.

This was a great adventure, and I definitely need to do this more often. There are so many unique things out there, little worlds we can’t see until we look closely. I can’t wait to find the next one.