Get down

Yes, even lower, lay flat on your belly, yes like that!
Now take a look around, do you see that half rotten leaf letting the light pass through these holes? That tiny mushroom? The dewdrop on the flower?
There is a whole new world to discover in your backyard, the city park or right beside the country road once you get on your belly. Don't mind your neighbours, they already know that you are strange! ;-)

You don't need much of equipment, one of those cheap aluminium coated trekking mats to keep dry and clean, a table tripod, some reflectors, silver, gold, white ( I made them myself by glueing cut out pieces of a survival blanket on a A4 cardboard for the silver and gold reflector and using high gloss photo paper for the white reflector). A unbreakable mirror can come handy when you need even more light.

So why those reflectors?
I am not a big fan of flashes, especially when you use a smartphone or compact camera. Either the lightning in the photo looks always the same or it does not show at all because you are too close to the object to have it in the beam. If you need an artificial light source go out shooting with a friend, wife, hubby ... who can hold a flashlight or fix a flashlight to a tripod.

Now let's get back to our shooting. You have found a spot which caught your interest, flowers, mushrooms, stones or a puddle, turn around it to get a feeling of how the light flows, to find the most dramatic angle, the most intriguing shadow play. Set up your camera and take a photo, check it out on the screen and adjust the angle if necessary, bring in the reflectors if need is or if you think that it will enhance the image. Do whatever crosses your mind and shoot (storage is cheap today, far cheaper than film in my beginning days).

As long as you are inspired keep on shooting, stop only when you feel that you have squeezed the spot dry or filled your storage.