Texture photography

Wings of Cruiser butterfly (Male) - Scales and veins makes the patter and shades of yellow is the color feature

During my visit to Cotigao WLS, the day was falling and I couldn't find the butterflies around me, which was my primary motive to visit the sanctuary. After carrying sack weighing kilos, walking for miles, quenching thirst and hunger to shoot some hopeless thirty-forty images in the whole day was real frustration. A thought came to go back to the room quickly and read something. I decided to save some time by taking a lift instead of walking.

Meanwhile I forgot, it was Goa, where on odd roads you seldom find a vehicle. Murphy's law adds that, the one you find is not heading to the desired direction of yours. Day was not that bad, as I thought. While walking, I started to look for the objects I never cared about. Some ideas about struck my mind. I realize soon that, I can use the angle evening light to try something new, which I never did. Additional I had one of the best micro lens mounted on my Nikon D7000 and I had so many objects around me: 'Textures'. I started texture photography suddenly.

Old bamboos - natural grey shade, deliberate diagonal composition

Texture is another form of photography, concerned with the surface of any object. e.g. smoothness of a rock, roughness of the road, patterns on the barks of the tree, petals of flowers, butterfly wings and many more. One can look for different patterns and the surface properties. Once the object is found, greater challenge is the compose the image. I found an interesting para somewhere on internet and explanation cant be better than that, and I reproduce it here:

Composing Texture Photographs

Contrast, curves and patterns are aspects of texture photographs which can help compose an image. Contrast, whether tonal or color, makes the texture detail show up even more. Curves help convey a sense of movement with leading curves directing the attention towards the focal point. Non-leading curves have no specific direction but still give information about the image. Patterns can help catch the viewer’s attention. Combining multiple patterns can support each other. Another method is by breaking the pattern for an interesting effect. - Steve's Digicam

Photo of a Backlit Gerbera with caption not better than this

Texture images can be made striking by choosing right pattern, good contrast and perfect object. Colors can add exhilarating effect. I remember the image of the bark of a Nilgiri tree I took. It had patches due to removed skin in patches and presence of hues of brown colors. Textures photographs can be more impressive on adding a quote to it. The best lens used for texture photography is any true macro lens, because of their capability to capture detailed image of small objects. Evening or morning light is useful as its slanted at about 30 degree to the horizon. A flash can also be used and creatively too. With commander mode operation, light can be thrown in different angles to increase contrast and depth specially in case of rough textures. Here are some of the photos I took during the same Cotigao visit (please view in full screen mode):