You don't have to travel far to find nature.

As the father of two young children (ages one-and-a-half and five), I've become a fan of outdoor activities that can be enjoyed close to home.

That’s one of the reasons why photography, and macro photography in particular, has become a new passion of mine. As anyone who has seen the movie “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” can tell you, the most unassuming suburban backyard becomes an exotic world of strange shapes, wild textures and creepy critters when viewed at the macro scale.

This past summer and fall, I explored this Lilliputian landscape with a Canon DSLR. I found I could focus on subjects that caught my eye, snap a few frames and then revisit them in the evening (after the kids were in bed) when downloading them onto my computer.

The slide show below features a selection of some of the photographs I took in my backyard in 2010. Most were taken using a relatively inexpensive 50mm prime lens and a set of Kenko extension tubes. In some cases, I also used an external flash.

Have a look and enjoy these micro marvels. Perhaps they’ll inspire you to give macro photography a whirl in the year ahead.

Have you already taken some close-up pics? Share your tips and tricks.