What is Close-Up Photography

I call myself a macro photography, but technically I'm a close-up photographer, as is the majority of photographers that call themselves macro photographers. 

When you purchase a true macro lens that says it shoots 1:1, that means that when you get to the minimum focusing distance of the lens, it will reproduce the actual size of the subject you have framed, onto the sensor of the camera, or another term is reproducing the life size of the subject.  So, when shooting in the 1:1 ratio or higher magnifications, that is what is called true macro photography, and when we are shooting in that 1:1 ratio, we are photographing an area that is less then one inch by a little over an inch. That's a pretty small area.

When we shoot a subject outside of the 1:1 ratio, we are shooting close-up photography.  In the film industry, if they are filming a group of people in a scene, and then zoom in on one of the actors face, they would be shooting a close-up of a large area.

With our cameras, if we are shooting a small area of a larger scene, then we are also shooting close-up, but not so close as to reach that minimum focusing distance of the macro lens. 

If we are shooting a butterfly that is sitting on a flower, and we have included the whole butterfly and flower in the frame, but not much of the area outside of the flower, that is close-up photography, because if we were shooting a true macro image of the butterfly, we would be only seeing the butterfly in the frame and nothing more.

So at what point have we gone outside of close-up photography.  I've never seen anyone explain how large of an area we can shoot that is no longer considered close-up photography. 

I've shot areas that covered about 2 feet by 3 feet and still considered I was shooting a close-up, but there doesn't seem to be any guidelines on where it ends.  I guess that area of 2 foot by 3 foot that I just mentioned would be my limit on close-up photography, and outside of that would be shooting a larger area then close-up, but that's just my opinion, and not a hard fast rule.

I'm sure others may have a different opinion of how large of an area is considered outside of close-up photography.

As I mentioned in my opening sentence, I call myself a macro photographer, even though technically I'm a close-up photographer, but my opinion is, if I'm shooting a small area of a larger area, I'm going to call it macro photography, and I don't get hung up on the technical terms.

Here is a close-up shot of a dragonfly on a flower with a little of the background.