The other day in my garden I looked under some leaves and found a family of small succulents. These plants were wonderful in their tiny spiralness, and I knew I had to photograph them.

I brought out my studio tripod and rearranged the leaves (it’s my garden so I can do what I want). Next, I added a focusing rail and my Novaflex bellows, attaching my Leica Monochrom M11 at the business end of the bellows and my Leica Macro-Elmar-M 90mm lens at the other.

The combination of the bellows and the short telephoto lens gave me quite a bit of flexibility as to how much magnification I wanted, and also the ability to position myself with enough distance from the subject so that my shadow was not an issue. 

By way of reference, the largest succulent in this “happy family” (shown above) is about 7.5cm (3 inches) in diameter, while the smallest one (shown below) is roughly 2cm (0.8 inches) across. 

If one looks closely, you never know what you’ll see! I had the greatest time photographing this miniature civilization of succulents up close and personal.