A few days ago I posted that making a great macro images isn't as much about the equipment you use, but more about finding a great subject, composing the subject properly in the frame, and I forgot to mention, good post processing.

I also forgot to mention that it takes time to identify good subjects from poor subjects, it takes time and some education to learn how to compose properly, and lots of patience and time being good at post processing.

I started photography in 2001 and in the first three years I was shooting, not one of those images I produced are on my website today.  Not that my equipment and skills with the equipment were not good, it's just that I was shooting subjects that were not interesting, and my composition was all wrong. 

In 2004 I found the internet and was excited to find a group called Naturephotographers.net.  It was a critique site where you could post your images and people would give you advice to help out. My very first image I posted (which I thought was perfect) I was helped out with my mistakes on the composition of the image. 

In those first three years I was learning on my own and not doing well, and also didn't search out that education that would have helped me make better images. 

After I got help from the online sites, my photography took off. In the first year on the site, I took a second place image of the year in the flora category, and took a first place and third place in the next two years.

I studied all the great images that were being posted by other macro photographers, started to see good subjects and how to compose them, and also at that time I started to learn about post processing.

So those first three years on my own, no success, a little help from the more experienced photographers, listening to what I was taught, and I'm winning awards, getting images published in magazine, and getting companies wanting the sponsor me.

One last thing, once you learn all the correct ways to created a great image, you have to spend a lot of time shooting, and working with the post processing tools to get to the level you want to be.

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