If you live near a beach, go check it out for some cool abstract patterns. I shoot these with my largest f-stop, f/32, {and then sharpen in post processing for the diffraction} to get all the sand and pattern in focus. Don’t go the day after it rains, the rain washes away the patterns, so wait a few days after a rain for the patterns to rebuild.

Use the “Structure” slider in Viveza 2 to help pull out the texture in the sand.

_________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

Save yourself some time learning flower photography by joining my Flower Photography Club online. Learn from the experts. FLOWER PHOTO CLUB - Mike Moats - Award Winning Macro Photographer

Join us in this amazing island experience with a family of likeminded flower photographers. 

This will be my seventh-year teaching at the Madeline Island School of Arts Campus.

Also teaching this year will be, Jackie Kramer, Kathleen Clemons, and Adrea Gulickx.

Madeline Island, nestled in the sparkling embrace of Lake Superior, captivates with its natural beauty and tranquil allure. Lush forests and meadows, painted with vibrant hues in summer, create a picturesque landscape perfect for photographers and nature lovers.

The island's artistic spirit thrives within its small communities, where galleries, local crafts, and a rich cultural heritage add depth to its charm.

On Sunday attendees will take a fun ferry ride from Bayfield to Madeline Island School of Arts sprawling campus.

On Sunday evening we will have a meet and greet with the four instructors in the dining hall.

A bonus of attending this workshop is an evening boat ride to the sea caves on Devils Island. 

After our Sunday evening welcome dinner everyone will retire for a good night's sleep in the campus cabins.

Monday morning everyone will meet up for breakfast in the dining hall and find out who will be their instructor and shooting location for the first morning.

Each day you will work with a different instructor in a new location.

The islands Lupine flowers is a big attraction, plus shoot in private gardens on the island or take a ferry ride back to the mainland to shoot some Bayfield gardens. 

After the morning shoot you will be back in the dining hall for lunch, and after lunch you will attend a lecture with your instructor of that day in one of the meeting rooms. 

After your instructor meeting you will have some time to relax before heading back to the dining hall for dinner.

After dinner you will have free time to go out and shoot, hang out with the instructors, or go to the island's galleries, bars, shops. 

After breakfast on Friday morning, you will head to the milkhouse barn meeting space for image critique from one of the instructors. 

Bring a laptop to load your images for the critique.

The workshop will come to an end at noon on Friday.  In the afternoon you will prepare to leave the island or stay an extra night and leave on Saturday.

Floral Photography on Madeline Island

June 15th–19th, 2026

For information about the workshop and to sign up click the link below.

CLICK HERE

For years I have preached to macro photographers that if you want to get everything in focus, shoot in the highest f/stops, f/22 to f/32.  

Photographers would say that you should not shoot high f/stop numbers because it causes diffraction.

Diffraction causes a softness in the details when your image comes out of the camera, but it is easily corrected with the sharpening programs we have in our post processing software.

At my flower conference last October, Ted July an attendee gave me a link to an article explaining how diffraction happens and how to correct it.

Here is the link to the article by Jon Rista, "The Diffraction Myth".

https://jonrista.com/2013/03/24/the-diffraction-myth/

Save yourself some time learning flower photography by joining my Flower Photography Club online. Learn from the experts. FLOWER PHOTO CLUB - Mike Moats - Award Winning Macro Photographer

Sometimes it's fun to take one image and do different styles of creative processing.  Here is the original.  These are dried flowers that I placed on one of my backgrounds.  Nice thing about having a camera with 26 megapixels is that I don't have to try and frame the subject very tight, I can just crop out what I want in the finished image in post processing.

I used three different filters in my Smart Photo Editor program. With that program you could create hundreds of different looks, so much fun playing.

Save yourself some time learning flower photography by joining my Flower Photography Club online. Learn from the experts. FLOWER PHOTO CLUB - Mike Moats - Award Winning Macro Photographer

I was dealing with high winds while shooting at the Morton Arboretum west of Chicago, and some of the images were coming out blurry from the movement.  Here is one where you would typically just hit the delete button, but with the creative filters in Smart Photo Editor, I used a painted filter to help out.

The original.

Save yourself some time learning flower photography by joining my Flower Photography Club online. Learn from the experts. FLOWER PHOTO CLUB - Mike Moats - Award Winning Macro Photographer