Along the Western side of the ridge that forms the Pittwater Peninsula, there are a few minutes at the close of the day when the leaf litter (eucalyptus, angophora, allocasuarina) turns a rich orange–leading to interesting opportunities as a background for macro/flora photography. As a macro (closeup) photographer I think I am less dependent on the light than (say) a landscape photographer, but this opportunity is too good to pass up… and very hard to take!! You have to be quick – there are only a few minutes available, and the orange light patches move while you are setting up the tripod! Never mind finding an interesting subject at just the right time…

So, this is still a work in progress for me – finding the right foreground subject that takes advantage of the ephemeral red-orange background of those few minutes. Here is my effort from earlier this evening. In this case, the background is the bark of a tree (allocasuarina torulosa, I believe), and the foreground subject is… well, it’s a fern…

The light at the "Magic Minute"

According to the camera timestamp, this photo was taken at 6:56 PM, about ten minutes before the official sunset time for Sydney. I used my 200mm macro lens, set at an aperture of f/5.6.