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25 Beautiful Macro Photography Shots

September 21st, 2008 in Inspiration | 200 Comments

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By Tim Mercer and Smashing Editorial team

Macro photography is the art of taking close-up pictures that reveal details which can’t be seen with the naked eye. For example, while we can see the fly on the wall, our eyes aren’t equipped to make out the fine details of the hairs on it’s face. This is where macro photography comes in. It gives us a glimpse into the world of the very small, which goes largely unnoticed by us as we hurriedly shuffle through our day.

In this edition of our Monday Inspiration series we present 25 beautiful examples of macro photography. A round-up of some truly revealing and inspiring macro photographs which are sure to have you marveling at the world around you. You may check out the links at the bottom of this post for further resources on the subject of macro photography.

You may also be interested in the following related posts:

25 Beautiful Examples Of Macro Photography

Eye of a Tokay Gecko
“A close-up shot of a Tokay Gecko. Their eyes remind me of old-fashioned keyholes. Thanks for looking!” The photo is taken by Alan M.

Spider macro

La force et la passion
“She felt her strength and passion back by 1 small drop of water.”. The photo is taken by Leon Baas.

Macro Photography

High-Tech Jumper
“Jumping spider on a DVD reading my data! Shot with a Canon 20D with a Canon MP-E macro lens.” The photo is taken by Coder.

Spider macro

Bubble Magic
“Close-up of a wet leaf … taken with a Canon Powershot A610 :)” The photo is taken by Sophie.

Macro Photography

Lasius Vlavius
“This yellow meadow ant is trying to find a way to dry ground after the rain”. The photo is taken by Leon Baas.

Macro Photography

Flower Detail
Close-up of a very colorful flower.

Flower macro

Frog’s eye
Photos are taken by Justin Dotson.

Macro Photography

Dewdrop Refraction
Taken by Brian Valentine.

Macro Photography

Water lily
The photo is taken by Chun-Chih Fan (ddsnet).

Macro Photography

A flower
The photo is taken by Indah Susanti.

Macro Photography

Another vision
The photo is taken by Kristina Buceatchi.

Macro Photography

A Flower
The photo is taken by Cyril Cattin.

Macro Photography

Igor Siwanowicz

Macro Photography

Under a microscope

Macro Photography

Crane Fly
This insect looks like something out of a Sci-fi movie.

Cranefly macro

A flower
The photo is taken by Chan Chen.

Macro Photography

Spider
Stunning detail of a spider.

Spider macro

8.365 I saw the sea
The photo is taken by Lux Tenebra.

Macro Photography

Water & Rose
Beautiful colors.

Water & Rose macro

European hover fly in profile

Hoverfly macro

Refracted Daisy
You can see the refracted daisy in the blurred background.

Daisy macro

White Spider

White Spider macro

Flower in water
Amazing picture of a flower sitting in water. The reflection almost looks surreal.

Flower in water macro

House fly
Simply wonderful photo.

House fly macro

Red Veined Darter
Truly stunning macro of this insect covered in morning dew. Wow!.

Red Veined Darter macro

Resources

Related posts

You may also be interested in the following related posts:

About the author

Tim Mercer is a photography enthusiast, graphic designer, artist and blogger. His blog digital artist toolbox offers free resources to the digital artist and graphic designer as well as tutorials, artist interviews, inspiration and more.

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  1. 1.

    Hen3co (September 21st, 2008, 2:37 pm)

    Some stunning photos!

    Don’t like spiders though, but the rest are beautifull!!!!

  2. 2.

    Jeeves (September 21st, 2008, 2:41 pm)

    amazing pictures.. wonder what kind of lens / Cameras/settings they were using ?

    Hey , this would make a good topic if you can teach Photography novices few awesome tricks with Digital Photography..

  3. 3.

    Mini0n (September 21st, 2008, 2:47 pm)

    Awesome! =)

    Spiders are ugly! lol

  4. 4.

    Gabe Diaz (September 21st, 2008, 2:52 pm)

    all great photos but that last one is truly amazing.

  5. 5.

    Arda (September 21st, 2008, 2:59 pm)

    Very beautiful!

  6. 6.

    David (September 21st, 2008, 3:05 pm)

    Crazy! You don’t get to see this kinda of thing too often. Nice post.

    Link [www.davidpcrawford.com]

  7. 7.

    Philip P. (September 21st, 2008, 3:26 pm)

    Wow - just an amazing set of photographs! The last is just mind boggling. The timing to get that shot.

    Huge kudos to all the photographers!!

  8. 8.

    Dex (September 21st, 2008, 3:40 pm)

    Wonderful. But i fuckin hate spiders. :|
    What was God thinking about when he created spiders?

  9. 9.

    Brendan Falkowski (September 21st, 2008, 3:46 pm)

    The last one is great.
    The “Flower in Water” (3rd to last) is a well known Photoshop effect. Use your brain people, water doesn’t move like that in such a small area…

  10. 10.

    Rob (September 21st, 2008, 3:47 pm)

    wow - I love macro

  11. 11.

    Rúben M. (September 21st, 2008, 3:52 pm)

    I love macro shots, many photos are only point and shoot, but other have so many work behind :)

  12. 12.

    anjhero (September 21st, 2008, 5:13 pm)

    THis is jus so cooooooooooooool…. Jus Awesome!!

  13. 13.

    Ben May (September 21st, 2008, 5:30 pm)

    Great list of pictures!

  14. 14.

    cheesy (September 21st, 2008, 6:51 pm)

    great detail! Hope to see more of em’! thanks smashing! ;)

  15. 15.

    IdeasInTime (September 21st, 2008, 8:13 pm)

    realy cool

  16. 16.

    Arthur Henrique (September 21st, 2008, 9:02 pm)

    Reeaaalllyyy coolll gallery!! The details are sou beautiful… tks smashing mag! =D

  17. 17.

    Geshan (September 21st, 2008, 9:23 pm)

    Amazing shots, great.
    Link [geshan.blogspot.com]

  18. 18.

    Andris (September 21st, 2008, 9:40 pm)

    Those are really stunning photographs. Thanks a lot for sharing them. Check out some of my pictures at: Link [www.andrislinz.ch]

  19. 19.

    Curt Simon Harlinghausen (September 21st, 2008, 9:44 pm)

    Amazing pictures. Just great article.

  20. 20.

    sureshdavid (September 21st, 2008, 9:54 pm)

    Awesome photos lol… Its Pretty cooooooollllllllllllllllllllllllllll………..

  21. 21.

    Sam (September 21st, 2008, 10:03 pm)

    Very amazing! I love the shots.

  22. 22.

    xyz (September 21st, 2008, 10:05 pm)

    @Dex
    Wonderful. But i fuckin hate spiders. :|
    What was God thinking about when he created spiders?

    I guess if spiders were not there we couldnt have come out with a wonderful movie called Superman! lol Anyways, nice collection of pics..

  23. 23.

    breko (September 21st, 2008, 10:47 pm)

    Could anybody give an advice what camera to buy (not too expansive) to make such pictures?

  24. 24.

    speedcu (September 21st, 2008, 10:48 pm)

    great!!! really impressive work! love it

  25. 25.

    ed (September 21st, 2008, 10:58 pm)

    wow!

  26. 26.

    neosheet (September 21st, 2008, 11:21 pm)

    its very..very.. awesome, i love Crane Fly

  27. 27.

    Fish (September 21st, 2008, 11:43 pm)

    Oh my god, the photos of insects are freakin’ AMAZING. Great job once again Smashing Magazine.

  28. 28.

    asp.net (September 22nd, 2008, 12:02 am)

    amazing photos !!!

  29. 29.

    Nathan Beck (September 22nd, 2008, 12:23 am)

    eeew…. some are a bit creepy but oh my how do they get some of those shots!!! Amazing stuff.

  30. 30.

    Ben (September 22nd, 2008, 1:05 am)

    Awesome shots. If anyone prefers butterflies to spiders as I do, I’ve got some examples of those Link [flickr.com].

  31. 31.

    Sadiq Hussain (September 22nd, 2008, 1:07 am)

    Amazing photos I have never seen such details.

  32. 32.

    Barend (September 22nd, 2008, 1:23 am)

    Fantastic selection! But some of them are edited I guess?

  33. 33.

    Adam Alyan (September 22nd, 2008, 2:04 am)

    Impressive!

  34. 34.

    carlos (September 22nd, 2008, 2:12 am)

    amazing shots, the last one is unbelievable! Well done Tim and the Smashing Team a brilliant collection of fascinating photos…

  35. 35.

    SiGa (September 22nd, 2008, 3:02 am)

    These are SO amazing - I hope I´ll ever get that far with my own camera!
    Thanks for this collection!

  36. 36.

    Andrei Gonzales (September 22nd, 2008, 3:04 am)

    As somebody who does a bit of photography, I can honestly say that a good amount of those photographs had used some pretty expensive (USD1400+) lenses. Others were fixed afterwards - still great shots though.

  37. 37.

    Dedail (September 22nd, 2008, 4:01 am)

    Einfach genial. Mehr bitte.

  38. 38.

    PrabhakaranG (September 22nd, 2008, 5:30 am)

    Awesome, I am luving it!

  39. 39.

    heather (September 22nd, 2008, 6:45 am)

    great photos, loved the cat.
    so many of these are flora/fauna, do people ever use macro photography for inanimate things? buildings, reflective surfaces, metals,… does anyone maybe have some examples of these?

  40. 40.

    Siah (September 22nd, 2008, 7:07 am)

    some really breathtaking stuff..

  41. 41.

    atxanne (September 22nd, 2008, 7:12 am)

    The insects almost seem to pose for this photos, just breathtaking. I’d like to see more pictures like the cat photo, but it seems to be linked to a site with nothing but external links. Which site was this image from?

  42. 42.

    yoshi (September 22nd, 2008, 7:15 am)

    very nice

  43. 43.

    Possumposs (September 22nd, 2008, 7:38 am)

    Love this article! Makes me want to go buy a Macro Lens right now…. Although, the red lily photo looks like it has photoshopped water

  44. 44.

    Grant Friedman (September 22nd, 2008, 8:35 am)

    Cool pics! I love Macro photography!

  45. 45.

    Dr. Girlfriend (September 22nd, 2008, 9:08 am)

    Absolutely gorgeous works! “Bubble Magic” (the macro of the wet leaf) taken with a humble Canon Powershot A610 proves Walker Evans was right. It’s not the camera, but the brain behind it that matters.

    Fantastic shots from some truly talented individuals.

  46. 46.

    Carlos Lorenzo (September 22nd, 2008, 9:20 am)

    Not only the quality is good. There are some subjects that take the leading part. That bug with big thick antennae and the cat’s eyes caught from an angle are stunning.

  47. 47.

    Jehzeel Laurente (September 22nd, 2008, 9:32 am)

    this is truly awesome! :)

  48. 48.

    Raj (September 22nd, 2008, 9:33 am)

    Really amazing photos.

    For all those who hate spiders; sure they are creepy and scary, but they are natures way of keeping the insect population under control. Without them, we’d have too many other little critters around.

  49. 49.

    dariusz (September 22nd, 2008, 11:27 am)

    Respect to Igor Siwanowicz, just look at all images @ linked site. Amazing and… some disturbing.

  50. 50.

    KellyP (September 22nd, 2008, 11:39 am)

    A great source of photography is megapixel.net (which is based in canada and offers both french and english versions of all their content. They post macro photos from their readers every month.

  51. 51.

    sevenTsix (September 22nd, 2008, 12:15 pm)

    Nice pics.
    ps: asking for a thumbs us from SU users will not always get you some and more likely to get you a ‘no rating’ or thumbs down even. Just be aware.

  52. 52.

    h-a-r-v (September 22nd, 2008, 1:28 pm)

    One of the best posts ever.

  53. 53.

    Will (September 22nd, 2008, 2:27 pm)

    My brother has some incredible macro shots:
    Link [www.mattbl.com]

  54. 54.

    Janckos (September 22nd, 2008, 4:47 pm)

    excellent job!

  55. 55.

    jian (September 22nd, 2008, 4:57 pm)

    oh…..my god!…
    佩服….牛

  56. 56.

    guokai (September 22nd, 2008, 5:30 pm)

    不错,,不错,,,一极棒!!!!!

  57. 57.

    OverZero.it (September 23rd, 2008, 1:05 am)

    Works by Igor Siwanowicz are simply stunning.

  58. 58.

    Monica (September 23rd, 2008, 1:26 am)

    Wooooooooooooooooooooou!!!

  59. 59.

    Ronny (September 23rd, 2008, 1:29 am)

    What a ridiculous list of AMAZING pictures!

  60. 60.

    sudarsan (September 23rd, 2008, 1:31 am)

    I like all the photos.,. great job

  61. 61.

    Pedro (September 23rd, 2008, 2:46 am)

    No disclaimer on spiders?

    Nice work, but I almost had an heart attack! :O

  62. 62.

    Shinden (September 23rd, 2008, 4:17 am)

    the dragonfly is awesome, the dews are like magnifiers attached to the dragonfly

  63. 63.

    perke (September 23rd, 2008, 5:24 am)

    great shots, love the last one…amazing!

  64. 64.

    norseye (September 23rd, 2008, 5:47 am)

    Move in close and everything is scary beautiful

  65. 65.

    MSOnWired (September 23rd, 2008, 5:54 am)

    These photos have amazing color, balance, and obviously… detail. Macro is a different world.

    onwired.com

  66. 66.

    Justin (www.DotNetMushroom.com) (September 23rd, 2008, 6:14 am)

    The ladybird photo is so powerful. A truly surreal experience when seeing all photos … amazing, simply amazing. Also great to see that Smashing Magazine is crediting the photographers and not just presenting a list of photos without saying who took them. Great stuff guys ! Keep us inspired !!

  67. 67.

    羊仔 (September 23rd, 2008, 6:17 am)

    苍蝇的复眼真复眼……

  68. 68.

    Glasgow Web Design (September 23rd, 2008, 7:01 am)

    The photos are great with brilliant colours - I assume they’ve all been photoshopped?

  69. 69.

    black diamon (September 23rd, 2008, 7:24 am)

    amazing photos congratulations team it´s really incredible

  70. 70.

    Adrian Rodriguez (September 23rd, 2008, 7:57 am)

    Those are some awesome shots!

  71. 71.

    michal (September 23rd, 2008, 1:55 pm)

    eeeeew…

    hate spiders

  72. 72.

    rybaxs (September 23rd, 2008, 5:36 pm)

    high macro definition.. cool! what type of lens did u use?

  73. 73.

    zanulvo (September 23rd, 2008, 6:57 pm)

    great pics

  74. 74.

    JD (September 23rd, 2008, 10:54 pm)

    TOTALLY AMAZING! — I understand why you guys hate spiders but that hate just doesn’t make sense. They eat a whole lot of disgusting insects–which truly harm our lives. So next time you see a spider, PLEASE SPARE IT!

  75. 75.

    Lillan (September 24th, 2008, 11:25 am)

    WOW - stunning pics. Nature IS beautiful!!!

  76. 76.

    G. (September 24th, 2008, 12:14 pm)

    Wow!

  77. 77.

    Rob (September 25th, 2008, 4:25 am)

    This guy is truly amazing Link [www.mplonsky.com]

    Link [www.creativeblob.com]

  78. 78.

    Mila Jones (September 25th, 2008, 6:00 am)

    AMAZING. Oh, and who cares if you hate spiders, that doesn’t make the photos any less breathtaking!

  79. 79.

    Robert Bragg (September 25th, 2008, 2:27 pm)

    if you enjoyed these macos take minute to view some other exceptional ones Link [outdoors.webshots.com]

  80. 80.

    Julissa Morales (September 26th, 2008, 12:26 pm)

    Es increible lo que se puede lograr con un Macro estas imagenes estan preciosas

  81. 81.

    roya (September 28th, 2008, 9:03 am)

    heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey

  82. 82.

    cecil (September 28th, 2008, 5:35 pm)

    兼职不可理喻，真他妈的叼、、

  83. 83.

    Daniel (www.EuBeboSim.com.br) (September 29th, 2008, 5:57 am)

    i don’t know… but i don’t like spiders! xD
    they r bad little monsters…

    i preffer the first photo… so… bye bye!

  84. 84.

    Jim (www.lambdasolutions.net) (September 29th, 2008, 4:02 pm)

    Stunning! I commend the photographers who have taken the shots in this series for their vision (actually for their macro vision) in seeing beauty even in things considered by many as hideous and monstrous. Simply inspirational!

  85. 85.

    ardhian.satrya (September 29th, 2008, 8:26 pm)

    I like the last one, very different!

  86. 86.

    test (October 1st, 2008, 7:06 am)

    test

  87. 87.

    Jaibem (October 1st, 2008, 12:34 pm)

    Superb!!!… Those are some awesome close up.
    Link [www.flickr.com]

  88. 88.

    Aneesh Abraham (October 1st, 2008, 7:54 pm)

    Great Collection!!!!

  89. 89.

    lilian (October 4th, 2008, 9:20 pm)

    me kedo kon la marikita

  90. 90.

    Steve (October 6th, 2008, 10:30 am)

    I love the posts here, but being totally afraid of spiders, this post just kills me!

  91. 91.

    sevki (October 15th, 2008, 10:40 am)

    guzel resimler.

  92. 92.

    greghousesgf (October 17th, 2008, 8:37 am)

    why do more people hate spiders than flies?

  93. 93.

    Ihatespiderss (October 21st, 2008, 4:41 am)

    my god. disclaimer for the spider pictures please!!

    but amazing photography.

  94. 94.

    Wayfaring Wanderer (October 22nd, 2008, 6:58 am)

    You definitely saved the best for last……….that is one mesmerizing photograph!

    thanks for sharing.

    Link [www.wayfaringwanderer.com]

  95. 95.

    Tully (October 22nd, 2008, 7:28 pm)

    Truly Awesome
    Link [www.flickr.com]

  96. 96.

    joice ribeiro (October 23rd, 2008, 3:33 am)

    thanks forsharing

  97. 97.

    joice ribeiro (October 23rd, 2008, 3:34 am)

    thank!

  98. 98.

    Marguerite (October 23rd, 2008, 9:08 am)

    The Refracted Daisy and Red Veined Darter photographs are superb designs for a Baccarat milllefiori paperweight. My sincere congratulations to the photographers. Absolutely brilliant!

    I’d like to suggest they contact a glass company that produces paperweights. :-)

  99. 99.

    María Cecilia Gómez B. (October 25th, 2008, 11:52 am)

    Those are beautiful and incredibles pictures, congratulations to the photographers, but as I love a lot cats ¨the another vision¨ from Kristina Buceatchi had captured me…
    Todas las fotos me parecieron muy bellas e increíbles, felicitaciones a todos los fotógrafos, y claro, como a mi me gustan tanto los gatos, ¨la otra visión¨de Kristina Buceatchi me encantó…

  100. 100.

    grace olsson (November 13th, 2008, 12:53 pm)

    Beautiful photos—but lots are with too much effect.Good for the eyes, of course. To show the capacity of the creaction…but I dont feel that all are arts.Photography is a little bit different.

  101. 101.

    legend-yu (November 19th, 2008, 9:23 pm)

    SO COOL! 我能和你们交朋友吗？（Can i make friends with you？）

  102. 102.

    shaaaks (November 20th, 2008, 11:56 pm)

    Not nice.

  103. 103.

    chris (November 24th, 2008, 9:19 am)

    does anyone know what animal or insect is the one in picture number 13..?

  104. 104.

    jack (November 25th, 2008, 5:09 am)

    macro=large micro=small

  105. 105.

    adonis (November 26th, 2008, 7:16 pm)

    Amazing and beautiful…

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