Creating a Macro-photography setting with Thierry Kuba

Thierry Kuba is a photographer, radio host and director of commercials and video clips based in the East of France in the city of Mulhouse. He is an enthusiastic member of the Photologo Community with more than 35 years of experience in the industry.

“I love product photography and the work of light, I love being able to make any object of daily life beautiful, glamorous and desirable” – he says.

Thierry recently shared a macro photography on our Facebook group that gained insane amount of engagement, that’s why we invited him to give us some useful tips and tricks to help us try the experience of macro photography, especially with ants.

We see this as a good opportunity to keep us busy and to learn something new during the lockdown period.

How do we prepare the ideal setting for our tiny friends?

Ants have always fascinated me and I thought it might be an interesting subject to photograph. Not always easy because they are very mobile and not easy to tame!

But by dint of perseverance I managed to make some photos that are very successful. Here is a little film that will show you how I realized step by step this photo.

I hope this will amuse you too and make you want to try the experience. Always be respectful of insects if you use them, go gently to handle them.

Thierry, give us some tips for macro photography at home with bugs:

Focus on their eyes, or at least their head.
Try to illuminate your subject and your background, the ideal is to have a flash for everyone. -You cannot shoot with continuous light with moving insects, because you have to freeze the action, and only flash can do it.
Some bugs have reflective surface, so try to soft the light with a little soft box if you have. But if you dont have one, you can use a paper tow in front of your flash.
Always try to use an external trigger for your camera, any camera shake will cause blur in your image.
You have to be patient and persistent with ants, in the beginning they will move a lot but they will calm slowly themselves.
Remember to make three or four small holes in the box that you use to conserve your insects, let them breathe!

As far as I’m concerned, it’s true that the product photo and my experience on lighting helped me a lot for macro photo. I usually photograph small products (lipstick, perfumes etc.) so this helps .

Is personal branding important to you?

Totally. I choose to sign my photos because I feel that a watermark will allow viewers to more easily find and quickly identify my photos and brand as images get shared around the Web. This can be hightly beneficial for marketing purposes.

I discovered Photologo in 2017 thanks to a promo on Facebook and I immediately loved it. I liked it so much that it became my company logo.

Photologo adds class to your photo and does not deteriorate it like some basic logo you can see.

Here are some other pictures macro I took with ants, you can also see how my Photologo match perfectly and what you can do with it.

Do you enjoy the Photologo Community?

What value the most as a member of the Photologo community is to share my work, to have feedback and questions from other members, and to see the work of the community.