Nature Closeup
NATURE …. CLOSE UP
by Skip Heine, Photography by John Kirchner
You are seeing this butterfly about twice it’s normal size. John took this beautiful image with a 100mm macro (close-up) lens and Kodak 800 Max film. Exposure was f11 at 1/500th, hand-held! See how this self-proclaimed “serious amateur” manages to generate these marvelous, first-rate images.
I met John at the local drugstore where he was looking over his latest “take” of nature photos. On one roll of Kodak Max 800 film he had captured an astounding variety of beautiful macro photographs, including a praying mantis, a bee (full-frame), the buckeye butterfly (top of the page) and others. He is totally self-motivated, shooting for the love of photography and constantly challenging himself to improve. His “eye” is excellent and his photographs are well composed. Whenever possible he tries to capture that “moment” that tells you something about the subject. He knows his subjects… “Praying mantis are fun to shoot,” he observes, “they will just sit there and stare at you.”.
A painted-lady butterfly taken with Kodak Gold 100 film, with a 100mm macro lens hand-held
His favorite “hunting ground” is a small garden maintained by the City of North Wildwood (NJ). He approaches his photography much like those wildlife photographers who stalk grizzlies and tigers. He knows their habits, is patient and quiet, sometimes even building blinds to camouflage himself in order to capture his subjects. If you wish to become an accomplished wildlife photographer this is an excellent training lesson for you. It can be done simply, with a minimum of equipment, and the cost is low. John uses an older Minolta X7000 SLR camera with two lenses - a 100mm macro and a 500mm mirror. He does not use special filters, ring lights, reflectors or flashes. He keeps it simple, insisting that “more shots are messed up due to camera shake than anything else”. All of his shots are hand-held.
For this shot John built a “blind”, completely covering his bedroom window except for a small hole to poke the lens through. He pressed his 100mm macro (adding a 2X tele-extender) against the glass (to avoid camera shake) and made a few exposures.
John captured this dragonfly with his 500mm mirror lens, which he usually uses for shooting egrets and other birds of the wetlands.. “It’s kind of tricky because you cannot change the aperture (it is fixed at f8) and the 500mm is hard to hold still. But I was intrigued by the dragonfly’s wings, the markings are different and I wanted to show the detail. Depth of field is so shallow that the wings on the left start to blur.
Like most true photographers John prefers his anonymity - wants to be the proverbial “fly-on-the-wall”. He makes these marvelous images for himself. He makes no claims at being an expert and has shown little interest in selling them nor does he ask for recognition. He would, of course, be thrilled to see his works published so, If you are interested in publishing any photos from his vast “Nature Up Close” collection, you may contact him by writing to:
John Kirchner
303 E. Nashville Ave.
Wildwood Crest, NJ 08260
Simply an incredible close-up of a common fly. John made this image with his trusty Minolta X7000 SLR camera with a 100mm macro lens. Exposure was f11 at 1/500th with Kodak Max 800 film, hand-held.
Persons like John Kirchner have been the source of inspiration for budding nature photogrphers who have great passion in nature and photography at the same time. John must be amazingly determined and steady person especially with his handiworks. He is successful in bringing up the tiny natural world yet so vast, to the eyes eager to see this world always anew.