Last night, I was looking for a particular picture in my epic archive of old crap, when I came across some of my first photos, from way back in the day. I hadn't seen these suckers in a good while, and it was fun winding the clock back to when I was picking up cameras I'd never heard of and lenses that looked like space shuttle parts. At some point, I'd discovered that lenses could be used back-to-front, and I'd obviously been exploring the possibilities, which is what I'd like to share with you, now.

It's a hack as old as eyeballs, but I still come across photographers who've never heard of it. You just take your lens off, flip it round and look through the wrong end. The wider the lens, the more it magnifies, when reversed (makes sense, no?), and you can get some pretty stunning close-ups with some pretty cheap equipment.

As it turned out, some of my favorite images were made by messing about with old tat, not by spending big bucks on new glass. Take ... pretty much everything I shoot (when I can be bothered) - the majority of it's taken through my soviet 44-2, which doesn't even fit on my camera. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Although there are reverse lens mounts, I never had the patience or the money, so I just held the lens up to the camera and did my best to shut out unwanted light with my fingers. It usually didn't work, but that turned out to be a bonus, as the light bleed is actually pretty tasty. Of course, it takes a long time to get a decent shot, as the depth of field can be less than a millimeter, which can account for half a body width, in some cases...

So, Anyway...

This guy, I remember, was kicking back on my balcony. He was about the size of a mosquito, if I recall. I must have shot this on a 50mm Pentax.

This little fella was scooching around in my carpet, looking for someone to play basketball with.

I could be wrong, but I think this one was taken through a door-peeper I bought for experimentation.
It's the same guy. You can tell by the look in his eyes.

This fly's wing was most likely shot through a reversed 80mm Tamron, or perhaps a 70mm Pentax. I really can't be sure.

This one, I think, is much newer. If I'm right about that, it was probably shot through the 35mm Nikon I still occasionally use.

Well, that's all I've got to say about that.