I came across the wonder that is David Joseph’s work in April of this year and my mind was blown away. The amount of detail, the colours, and the closeness that he brought forth was and is simply astounding. I reached out recently and we got talking in line with my recent obsession with mobile photography (Yes, David is a mobile macro photographer), I couldn’t help but ask; Why Macro Photography? And this was his response;
—
“After several months of shooting several subjects including humans with my phone, I noticed that some things were lacking, I lacked inward contentment and satisfaction hence I turned towards the world of the crawlers. I aspire for excellent photographs every time I shoot. I sort to have my work be revered universally as good but the images I was shooting at the time didn’t meet those standards so I kept on searching.
In retrospect, a lot or part of it was because of my phone. Photographers always say stuff like gear doesn’t matter but sometimes (like in my case) gear does matter. The evolution of technology has made some really remarkable images possible but in 2019, my phone wasn’t as innovative as I’d have loved. I observed that my phone excelled more when I was working with flowers as opposed to when I was shooting regular portraits.
The second best decision I made past starting photography is getting an external macro clip-on lens to better compliment the capabilities of my phone. There are quite a number of them out there but I needed one with quality optics that’d offer stellar imagery as opposed to the gimmicks that have saturated the market and the Apexel Macro Lens gave my photography that extra bit of elevation.
Why Macro Photography?
My drive for excellence pushed me towards the macro aspect of photography. Most mobile photographers are documentary photographers, and a few do portraiture but there was none doing macro photography the way I wanted and that is why I do it. It wasn’t because I shared something special with the flowers and insects, this was more because of self-validation. I needed to be the best photographer that I could be and macro photography was my path to being that person, and quite frankly, scaling up the world unseen is fun. I didn’t want people telling me my pictures were good for the sake of it; I needed them to see my work and be blown away. Over time, things evolved and I fell in love with the craft and the insect world and thus the journey began to today: Becoming the “Insect Man”.
—
David Joseph is a Mobile Macro Photographer based in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. All images here are his and were used with permission. You can see more of his work here.
