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Image Design for Close-ups

Tom Whelan

Image Design for Close-ups

Tom Whelan

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

12:30 AM

Hybrid Meeting (See Instructions/Get Zoom Link Emailed)

United Parish of Auburndale

64 Hancock Street

Auburndale, MA


The presentation begins with a few examples of closeup and macro photography taken from the work of Imogen Cunningham, Irving Penn, Eliot Porter, and other photographers. The remainder uses my images to illustrate types of designs for closeup photography: the subject in isolation against a simple background, the subject in a richer setting, images where a pattern is the subject, and extreme closeups that make the subject hard to recognize.


I'll describe the techniques you can use to create each type of image, including the choice of lens, aperture, camera position, and the option to stack images. For each image, I describe the choices you make in the field to create the image. Finally, I'll list the types of equipment and software useful for macro and closeup photography.

Tom Whelan

Tom Whelan's photographs show nature close up: abstracts of natural designs, portraits of flowers and wildlife, the many forms of water, and intimate landscapes. He's a naturalist; photography goes hand-in-hand with his interest in nature. Many of his photographs are abstracts of natural things that emphasize simple or repeating shapes and forms. One ongoing project of his is photography of ice and ice crystals. Most recently, he has photographed the seacoasts of Maine and California.

Whelan has exhibited at the Concord Art Association, the Cambridge Art Association, the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society, the Mattatuck Museum, Massachusetts Audubon Society sanctuaries, the Discovery Center at Silvio Conte National Wildlife Refuge, and in private and corporate galleries in Massachusetts. He has also lead closeup photography workshops in Costa Rica with nature photographer Greg Basco.

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