I separate my images into broad categories to help locate them when needed, with some refinements into sub-categories as necessary. So when working on my “Best of 2012” posts, I decided to use these categories (with the exception of the previous post.) As mentioned earlier, two categories remain unrepresented because I didn’t add any images to them in 2012 – those are Beach and Mountain. Two other categories, Mammals/Carnivores and Sunrise/Sunset, were also badly stocked this year, and squeaked out a ‘Best of’ but not a runner-up, and so are not seen here.
So here are the second-place winners in their categories, listed alphabetically.
Aquatic “Rapacious”
Giant water bugs (Belostoma flumineum) are wicked freshwater predators – this one is snacking on a snail.
Birds “Stabby The Heron”
More of a favorite than a stunning image, since I love how the beak has pierced the fish completely. The great blue heron (Ardea herodias) wasn’t bothered by my presence, perhaps because I was knee-deep in the river and thus simpatico.
Insects “Roguish”
I don’t have to explain anything, do I?
(See also the competitors in this category here.)
Lakes, Streams, Waterfalls “Grande”
Froth in an eddy of the nearby river, resembling some creation of a barista. Or maybe not – I don’t drink coffee…
Leaves, Plants, Trees “Schedule Conflict”
I think the image expresses the incongruous weather early in the year; this photo actually comes after my first bee & flower shots. The light angle produces most of the detail, which is why I stress its importance so often.
Reptiles, Amphibians “Green Day”
The green anole (Anolis carolinensis) really was over my head, so this is a natural perspective, and one that shows the scale detail quite nicely.
Scenic, Abstract “Multiverse”
Just dewdrops – some acting as lenses, some well out of focus. Leaving the aperture wide open prevented any hexagonal or octagonal shapes from the bokeh.
Science, Miscellaneous “Alert”
It all just seems to come together for this image – diffuse light from the softbox, angle of view, and a cooperative pose from the snail.
Space “Textures”
While full moons are great by eye, closer looks benefit much more from partial phases, where the details and the geography are enhanced by the shadows. It’s easy to tell which craters were filled by lava, and which weren’t. I have to add that this is just a telephoto lens shot, with a Sigma 170-500mm.
So that’s the collection of near-misses for the year. Come back tomorrow for the Best of 2012 images in the final installment of this exercise in ego!
So as I mentioned, I went ahead and put together my best images of this year – or, as it really should be, my favorites, since no one is voting on these but me. However, this year was notable in that most of my images, by a wide margin, were arthropods (which I still call ‘insects’ solely for convenience.) I didn’t like ‘discarding’ so many images that I felt were strong just to produce a Best and Second Best, so I created a post of ten more eager and excited finalists in ascending order. Feel free to do your own Casey Kasem impressions as we go.
10. “Is It Safe?”
An unidentified jumping spider checks to see if I’ve left yet.
9. “At The Trough”
This bumblebee was holding still as poorly as they ever do – sometimes you simply nail focus even when the conditions are against it.
8. “Almost… there…”
Optimism is good, though sometimes misplaced.
7. “So, now what?”
Newly hatched lacewing nymphs (family Chrysopidae,) measuring roughly 2mm in body length, congregate on their suspended empty egg cases before venturing off on their own. Later on they will camouflage themselves with debris.
6. “Point it away from your face”
Just a white-banded crab spider (Misumenoides formosipes) and her meal.
5. “Raargh!”
Combined backlighting and flash bringing out the best of a giant stag beetle (Lucanus elaphus.)
4. “Translucence”
I just like what the light does to both the leaf and the jumping spider.
3. “Food Chain”
A spiny assassin bug (Sinea spinipes,) maybe 12mm in length, preys on a lady beetle larva that was in turn preying on aphids. Click to see the facial detail.
2. “Steam Train”
How could I pass this up? Click for the higher-resolution version to see the detail on these unidentified leafhopper nymphs.
1. “Mellow?”
I have a hard time defining what it is about the quality of light that makes this work for me, but the soothing nature of it offsets the menace of the spider. Or maybe it’s just me.
I can’t say for sure, but I think this is genus Mecaphesa, possibly M. carletonica.
So those were the finalists that I couldn’t pass up in the Insect category. If you’ve read what I said about position and shooting angle, I can follow that with saying only three of these were taken from a ‘normal’ position, and the rest in various degrees of awkwardness, number 7 especially so. You might also note that none of them have the black background so typical of macro work; while I certainly have enough images like that, the ones without usually look much better, so it’s worth the effort to eradicate whenever possible, and I’ll talk more about this soon.
Alex Wild of Myrmecos (sidebar,) and Compound Eye at Scientific American, has announced that he will feature any “Best of 2012” sites from science & nature photographers in a post at Compound Eye. There’s already a nice collection of links, so check them out!
While I usually skip the whole “best of the year” stuff and rarely get engaged in rating my images, I figured it was a good way to go back over what I’d done which, among other things, helps set goals for improvement and future captures. Not to mention I’m happy for the chance of greater exposure. I figure I’ll feature one photo from each of the broad categories into which I sort my images, and one runner-up. The runner-up post will come first, followed by the best post a day later, on the 31st.
It’ll be interesting. Two categories, Mountain and Beach, have no entries for 2012 at all – I never got the chance to do any shooting at either. One category received its first contributions for the year just a couple days ago – that will be obvious ;-)
And one category, Insects (which should technically be called Arthropods, but too bad) has 6,687 images from this year in it, and I’m not even sure I’m done. These, by the way, are the ‘keepers,’ the ones I considered strong enough for my stock images, and far less than what I actually shot – many images get discarded from simply not making the standards I set. So yeah, going through that collection is going to take some time.
Coming soon (as soon as I finish all of the illustrations necessary) will be another webpage in the Tips & Tricks section of the main site, as well. So check back shortly!
So, The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog had a volunteer engagement at the North Carolina Museum of Life & Science in Durham, so I tagged along to kill time at the museum, because I hadn’t been in a while. As you may have already surmised if you’re exceptionally quick, the museum has a butterfly house.
For a working nature photographer, such places can be nice, but not necessarily as useful as you might imagine. Everything is a captive subject, of course, but what reduces the value of the shots even more is that the lepidoptera species and the foliage are often from different locales and habitats, and thus may produce an ‘unnatural’ image. While I might like the way the image at left came together, any editor interested in either of the two species seen would probably not want the other to be included. This is a two-edged sword; it can cost a bundle to obtain images of such species in their natural habitat, but pricing the images accordingly will often exceed the budget of the potential client, so the goal is to produce as many useful images on any trip as possible, and try to recoup the costs in volume of sales. That is, unfortunately, not a business plan I’ve got in motion right now.
There’s still plenty that can be done, including detailed anatomical and artsy images, not to mention just having fun. I learned long ago that some butterflies are fond of sweat, so convincing them to remain on your hand can be as simple as swiping your forehead first. It would seem that this depends on the forehead; they definitely seemed to prefer my sweat over The Girlfriend’s, so it’s lucky that I’m a bountiful provider. I was tempted to let my ego run wild and imagine that her wiping my brow was something akin to the assistance provided a great surgeon while he worked, but my similarity to a dairy cow is probably more accurate. Her fingers, but my sweat, produced the image at top.
Now here’s the other side of captive photography. The chances of my obtaining an image like this in the wild are minute in the extreme, since this is mating behavior, and the dude on the left is indeed in midair. Regardless of the locale, the behavior displayed is typical and can easily be used as an illustration. The end use of the image is an important consideration; while it might be colorful and (seemingly) appropriate to capture a butterfly on a flower, such images are common. Behavior and life cycle images also have their markets, and far fewer people capturing them.
By the way, butterfly houses and rainforest displays usually mimic natural conditions, which means they are quite warm and extremely humid. Your camera will typically have to warm up a bit to eradicate the tendency to get condensation on the lens surfaces, and this will go faster if it’s out of the bag. Do not change lenses, or even operate the zoom functions, until the camera is warm – humidity inside the lens can take hours if not days to clear. Air circulation helps, but patience is the only real tool.
Adjacent to the butterfly house is a section of other critters in various small terrariums, and these present challenges of their own. Shooting through glass frequently presents difficulties, made worse if the glass isn’t perfectly clean – for some reason, the frogs seemed disinclined to wipe down their side. The best method for avoiding distortion is to shoot straight through the glass rather than at an angle, but this means your positions become quite limited. It also helps to reduce glare and stray reflections by being right against the glass, so if the terrarium is small this puts you very close to your subject – better have a lens that focuses quite close, or keep the extension tubes handy.
The real challenge, however, is lighting. The camera flash can produce glare from the glass that you’re attempting to shoot through, or from the glass on the far side of your subject. Direct light can throw contrasty reflections back from shiny surfaces, and the close conditions mentioned above can mean even getting light onto your subject (most especially without deep shadows underneath) is difficult. This is where an off-camera flash cord works best, and where The Girlfriend was a tremendous help. Poison dart frogs such as these can be very difficult to get any eye detail from, since dark eyes against dark skin usually means nothing but black, but the right light angle changes that. She was also able to aim the strobe past leaves that would throw shadows, and select a position that models the shape of the frogs better – it’s the gradients and shadows that provide three-dimensionality in photographs.
Case in point: this tiny, shy little specimen (charmingly, an Oophaga pumilio) who took shelter under a rock ledge and was barely visible in normal conditions. The body shape is defined by the shadows, and while the eyes might have benefited from a catchlight, a reflective sparkle, this matters less when surrounded by the red skin outlining the shape of the eyes – it might even have contributed to the menacing expression of discovering that the neighborhood dogs were at the garbage cans again (you have to admit, there is something purposeful about the frog’s position, and yes, I tried several variations in shooting angle before selecting this as the most expressive.) And while it’s easy to miss, you will note the blur at lower left from schmutz on the glass, since I was shooting at frog eye level and they never wash their hands adequately.
What we were most delighted with this trip, however, was the discovery that since our last visit, the museum had obtained some orchid mantises.
Maybe people who live in these areas are used to their local species, and are fascinated by the gray squirrels and crows we have in North America. Okay, probably not. But I’d truly love to spend a few weeks (preferably months) in some of these areas and wear the shutters out of my cameras. While closely related to the various mantises we have here, featured in my spring and summer posts, orchid mantises (Hymenopus coronatus) from Southeast Asia possess a flamboyant body shape that camouflages them among their favorite habitat, which also provides their name. I mean, c’mon, how can you not love something with eyes like that? But it was the restrictions of the housing display that prevented me from getting any images (yet) that showed them off better. First, it didn’t help that the two specimens were snubbing the orchids and branches within the terrarium in favor of climbing the glass and traipsing along the roof inverted (though I admit it was fun to see them climbing the glass, something I never thought a mantis could do.) However, this meant that I had to work very close to the insects to prevent reflections from the exterior, and framing choices are quite limited then. At any given time, I also had less than a minute where their perambulations were along a natural-looking surface, and they weren’t holding still then – mantids have a tendency to twitch and sway like leaves in the wind to fool their prey and disguise their advances, and this means staying on your toes to maintain tight focus.
And then there’s the background, which basically didn’t exist – the terrarium was hexagonal-shaped to permit good views, which isn’t as accommodating for nature photography. Yes, I admit to not coming prepared with a collection of leaves to hang against the far side for a nice backdrop – I’m trying to imagine how well that would have gone over with museum staff.
Seen here, the mantis has just finished cleaning a foreleg, having rudely refused to wait for my flash to recharge. Also note the one leg apparently hanging in space but actually clutching the glass, and the stray reflections that make endeavors of this kind so complicated.
Now, it’s not all bad, and I don’t want to discourage anyone from such pursuits, only to provide accurate expectations. The mantis will almost certainly provide a good pose on an orchid at some point, allowing both a natural-appearing setting and a great display of the camouflage, but it takes patience to wait for these opportunities. Add in courtesy to everyone else visiting the museum who would like to see the critters past you, and recognize that even in such ‘controlled’ conditions, obtaining a few good shots can be demanding and take a certain investment of time and effort. Considerably less so than flying to Malaysia, of course, but still more than simply walking up to the display and firing away.
There’s also such a thing as not stressing about the shot, and simply enjoying the museum for what it is – the Museum of Life & Science displays a tremendous amount of effort in education, activities, and variety, so it’s not just for photographers. I think I even saw some kids there (I often tunes such things out automatically – there might have been a lot for all I know.)
The leaf image from the previous post was obtained there as well, The Girlfriend’s assistance with the flash providing a stronger backlighting effect than the weak sunlight through the glass dome.
Just a quick one before the day closes, an image I got this morning while trying (and failing) to capture a bird in a treetop illuminated by the first orange rays of the sun. I had turned towards the sun peeking through the trees and was dodging back and forth, hoping to find something perched that I could silhouette against the light. As I moved about, the nearby holly bush caught my eye, and I shifted my focus much closer. Came out much better than expected, with just a smidgen of indirect light shaping the leaves.
This post was fostered by an exchange on Panda’s Thumb and simply needs to be said. This is an open letter to everyone who might call themselves devoutly religious, creationist, conspiracy theorist, new age or alt med supporter, paranormal or psychic believer, and so on. Or anyone that has ever used the phrase, in any form, “Science doesn’t know everything.”
It’s simple. Science has nothing to prove to you. You do not get to dictate what science is, or how it should present any evidence at all to you. And the reason for this, very simply, is that science works.
Science is a methodical process of learning, and within that method sits several distinctive functions that make us, as sure as we can humanly be, confident in our results, even negative results (which are just as important, if not more so, than the positive ones.) It is these results which ‘prove’ anything and everything that is routinely accepted as the noun, “science,” and when it comes right down to it, that’s the only thing that is needed.
Randall Munroe of xkcd, very early on in his prolific webcomic career, put it very succinctly:
He left it up to the reader to determine what that graph and equation showed, which is part of the comic’s charm; to get the point, one has to do a little legwork. I am going to undermine this a bit, with some misgivings, by revealing that this diagrams the Cosmic Microwave Background – the leftover energy from the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, which is largely based on the various redshifts of the stars we can see throughout the sky. One of the consequences of the theory was that, if true, we should be able to see very faint effects of the cooling that would have been taking place from the initial high-energy state, as the energy dissipated over nearly 14 billion years. Given that time frame, this energy should be at a certain level; the problem was, we had no way to detect such low levels of energy when it was proposed, and the prediction was shelved and almost forgotten for sixteen years. A couple of radio astronomers detected the energy by accident in 1965 and could not determine what it was – the dots were connected after they brought it up to physicists at Princeton University. In other words, no one was looking for it, but found it anyway, right smack where it was predicted to be.
That’s just one of the myriad reasons why we use science, and why it has proven its value as a process. So please understand that when you claim that science has something to prove to you, you’re not just wrong, you’re both self-centered and arrogant (which may explain why you get treated as such.) Nobody really cares that you have a preference for some state of affairs, or an emotional involvement, or simply don’t understand therefore believe that science must be wrong. Your assertions, weird attempts at logic or philosophy, or selectivity over what you decide should be ‘evidence’ means nothing at all to anyone who knows why we use science. And that ‘why’ is: because to be useful it has to perform some function.
There’s a reason for this. Throughout human history, there have been millions upon millions of ideas, attempts to explain something that we witnessed. The vast majority of them were completely and utterly wrong, and the most distinctive lesson we can learn from that is how easy it is for us, as a species, to be wrong. I can predict that numerous people, who this letter is addressed to, will seize upon this as exactly their point, except that science has already gotten there ahead of you – hundreds of years ahead of you. Everything in science revolves around the simple recognition that some idea might be wrong, and in order to rule this out, we have to take pains to test it carefully. I wish the same efforts were demonstrated by everyone who denigrates science, or any aspect of it, but if that were the case there would be no point in this letter.
Most importantly, any explanation, any theory or hypothesis, any idea at all, has to lead somewhere to be anything more than an idle thought. Aliens are visiting our planet? Fine. Who are they, how did they get here, where did they come from, and what do they want? When you think you have an answer to those, then demonstrate how you know you’re not wrong. Your natural remedy is effective? Fine. How many people did it fail to work for? What do you mean, you never counted? How do you know it works, then? For any positive results you want to quote, how do you know something else wasn’t working instead? God created the universe? Fine. Who is this god, where does it live, why does it do anything, and how do you know this? Oh, you have a book? Very nice. I have several hundred – what’s your point? You do realize that millions of people before you all had their own books, and stories, and folklore, revolving around the sun and the moon and the seasons and the natural disasters – obviously their books and stories didn’t really lead anywhere, so you need to go at least that extra step to show that you’ve got a more useful idea than they had. And if your answer runs along the lines of how “everything” proves a god, which god is it proving, and how did you rule out this being the Aztec or Aborigine gods?
Double-standards that border on hypocrisy are not what any adult should be guilty of, and that’s exactly what I’m referring to here. If you think some scientific standard (or law, or theory, or whatever) isn’t working, then explain how your own preference works better. This is a minimum standard for competing scientific theories, so your superior idea should surpass this; if you haven’t bothered to even contemplate this, you deserve whatever response you receive. Finding some fault with scientific knowledge isn’t enough, not by a long shot – you can’t logically assume some other idea ‘by default.’ You need to explain not only whatever little point of evidence you’ve selected, but all of it. If it’s right, then it’s right across the board, so this should be extremely easy to demonstrate.
You might be the type that caught how the word ‘prove’ was in quotes in the third paragraph, and there’s a simple reason for this: nothing is even proven beyond the shadow of a doubt – all we can work with is the preponderance of evidence. The quotes were recognition of this fact, a bit of bare honesty that reflects how our knowledge must work. The polar opposite of this is assertion, where anyone who doesn’t know and has no way of knowing makes definitive statements anyway, even when the concept they’re promoting relies on explanations of why we cannot see the evidence we should expect – you know, like supernatural existence, or the government is hiding the technology, or cynics can suppress the effect, and so on. Anyone whose favorite concept requires excuses has no call to question any process where supporting evidence is meticulously tested.
Now for a big one. When thousands of educated people the world over are using some aspect of science on a daily basis, the chances are ridiculously, infinitesimally slim that the fatal flaw that you believe you know of did not occur to any of them, ever. So at the very least, have just a touch of humility and ask anyone if they’ve considered your idea, before you triumphantly announce you know just what’s wrong. Otherwise, once again, you deserve whatever nasty response you receive, and to be honest, probably much nastier than that. While it is certainly true that aspects of scientific knowledge have gone through corrections in the past, the people who produced these corrections were more than a little knowledgeable in the field to begin with; nowhere to be found is a correction from someone who wouldn’t pass a first-year exam in the subject. That’s the kind of stuff found in comic books, not real life. In short, it took science to correct the flaws in science – not revelation, not inspiration, not emotional surety, not astrological readings, not anecdotes from convention attendees. Not ever.
If at any time your argument includes something even vaguely related to, “It’s possible,” you’re only demonstrating the lack of evidence that you possess. Possibility is too vague to have any value – physically it means there is nothing known to prevent it, and philosophically it means everything that can be imagined, neither of which can be said to narrow down the field. For everything claimed to be ‘possible,’ it is also possible that it doesn’t exist, so as an argument it’s solely an appeal to a single perspective. Demonstrate what’s probable, and how much so, to even begin to impinge on functionality or value.
Closely related to this is the frequent selection of exceptions, such as where some scientist was actually wrong, in utter dismissal of the vast percentage of cases where science works exceptionally well. Everyone and their brother, of course, believes that they’re the lucky or special one who will be that exception, which is exactly why Las Vegas exists. Yet focusing on exceptions does nothing whatsoever to demonstrate the value of any alternate proposal; again, it’s simply an appeal to a single perspective, which demonstrates (again) the lack of something more convincing.
You are welcome, of course, to hold whatever you want to believe as a personal preference, and no one has a right to challenge that. But this should not be used as a shield when someone doesn’t agree with you. If you thought it was important enough to post about, or inform your opinions on policy, or guide your decisions in child-rearing, then you’re obviously interacting with others and we’re well out of the realm of personal choice; you are now obligated to demonstrate your reasoning. If you can’t, you should expect to be chastised or ignored. And kindly do not resort to the tired old, “People need to respect my opinion” argument, because they don’t;respect is the recognition of value, not a right that anyone has solely for existing. You get respect by earning it, and to do that, you need to convince others of the value behind your beliefs. Or, you can keep them to yourself, which is the only state that can accurately be called, ‘personal.’
If you’re not convinced, that’s fine – there’s no requirement that you should be. Science races along, believe it or not, without your support. But nobody owes you anything, and no one is obligated to try and swim upstream against your cherished beliefs. You’re not that important, and your attempt to pit your beliefs against the world has meaning only to you. If you honestly want to know, the information is readily available and very often free-of-charge. What it takes to comprehend it, however, is the honest desire for knowledge, emphasis on honest. If all you’re trying to do is shore up your own beliefs, well, that’s just insecurity, and solely your own problem.
Okay, so, I had this idea a couple of weeks ago, to feature an image from the summer solstice on the day of the winter solstice – kind of a callback to nicer weather, and a reflection of that little archive list on the sidebar, right? Yeah, so, first, I had to stick to digital images, since over a decade of slides in my stock are only dated by the month and year I got them developed, so no help there (no, I don’t keep a shooting journal.) But then it became clear how rarely I was out and shooting subjects on the summer solstice. I can shoot a lot in the summer, but it’s not every day, and it appears that June 21st is just one of those days when I didn’t.
So while I had intended to go back to a previous year, I ended up with just six months ago; the solstice fell on June 20th this year.
Doing artsy stuff with insect photography is a little difficult, since combining a photogenic insect, a useful pose, and a decent setting into something appealing is rather demanding. This is one of my few examples, and nothing that I consider high art, but you know how I feel about it anyway. Yet it also illustrates something else, which is where light becomes an issue with such work. This image is natural light, taking advantage of the sun angle to bring out the textures of the leaf, but this required a slower shutter speed and wider aperture than I would normally have used to capture sharp detail, and it produced some interesting focus effects. Notice how the leaf is unfocused in so many areas, but sharp in a vertical stripe under the fly. This basically means the leaf in that area was the same distance from the camera as the fly.
We’ll take a quick look at closer range, too, mostly to show off the color of the eyes. It’s not that this is especially interesting, though I could call this a product of my Green Phase if I was inclined to be pretentious. But insect eye color, and some bird feathers, often depends on light angle rather than inherent pigmentation. I have often noticed that the throat color of ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) doesn’t show up at all with direct flash, making it even more involved to try and get images that display this color. But I also have several arthropod images where the eyes take on a rainbow hue depending on the angle of the strobe. And so it was with this example, as I switched to augmented light for further images.
It might be hard to believe, but this is the same fly (probably genus Condylostylus) in the same setting, less than a minute after the one above. Here all of the light is coming from the camera flash, on a bracket placing it almost directly above the camera – check the position of the shadow for the best guide to where the light was coming from. Not only does the fly not appear to be as green, as the grey legs and lower thorax show up clearly, but the eyes have become orange; I wish I could give a succinct description of why this is, but there’s numerous factors that can contribute, so maybe I’ll tackle this in a later post. Notice that the leaf also takes on a rattier appearance, the lighting seems a bit harsh, and the background has dropped into darkness.
This is one of the benefits of having a flash bracket that allows a lot of position changes for the strobe. Different angles produce different effects in the image, and while you have a cooperative subject, it’s often worth the effort to try moving the strobe around a bit. It also helps to know what light does, especially with high and low contrast, diffuse light (like from a softbox) or bright and direct, and even multiple lighting or supplemental reflectors. Some forms of lighting can produce strange highlights, or be reflected in the subject in some way. I’ve known portrait photographers that do very close work who may put a single cross of black tape across the middle of their softbox diffusers; when it is reflected in the eyes of their subjects, it takes on the appearance of a window with four panes. By the same token, square or oddly-shaped diffusers can sometimes produce curious reflections in macro subjects.
Anyway, not only have we successfully thwarted Armageddon yet again, for those of us in the northern hemisphere we’re over the hump and the days are getting longer now. I’m personally more psyched when the first plants start budding out and I can get into my photographic stride, but this is a good reference point anyway. Maybe someday we’ll go back to calendars that reflect the solar year much better.
While I pay no attention to the news, I’m still hearing about the impending winter storms across much of the US, and this coincides with one of the posts from two years ago in the sidebar. So, while I was doing some of the year end updates on the calendar and such, I decided to add two pages to the Tips Gallery. Should you be among those who witness a winter storm and still want to get out and photograph something, there is now a page on cold weather photography available. This actually contains more info than the original post.
For all the southern hemispherans, there’s a page on hot weather tips as well. Even if you’re not from the southern half of the planet, you can still go there and reminisce about sweltering days.
The calendar has been mostly updated now, and the page on how to create your own guide to local sun & moon rising & setting times.
One more page is on the way, but I have to stage some more photos for it so it’ll still be a few days yet. It’s relevant to about half of the posts that I make here, so if you’re still around, you stand a good chance of finding it interesting. Stay tuned.
I just find this amusing. The Girlfriend, like probably 85% of the world’s population, isn’t terribly fond of bugs, most especially not the big ones. But she’s watched me pursue numerous arthropodic subjects, and still finds fascination in the details revealed from macro work.
The net result of this is seen here, what I’m fairly certain is an Acanthocephala declivis, a variety of leaf-footed bug. The specimen is 30mm long, so not at all a small bug. The Girlfriend spotted it while out shopping one cold evening, sitting motionless on a sidewalk (the bug, not her.) Instead of stepping around (or on) it, she hunted about until she found a discarded drink cup, scooped it up, and brought it home for me to photograph. She had no knowledge of what it actually was, no idea of defensive mechanism or potential nastiness, but she knew I’d like it. Not to mention that it’s no longer the season for such subjects and my photography is slowing down commensurately, so I’m happy to have something to work with.
Both images here are ‘studio’ shots, indoors with a cut stem from the forsythia bushes and a photo print of mine as the background; the lighting is a basic studio strobe primarily overhead, with a little slave strobe filling the shadows. There is a lot to be said for using lighting that runs from AC power, because otherwise I’m working the hell out of my rechargeable batteries.
Anyway, if your Significant Other isn’t really into your photographic pursuits, be patient – you never know what might change. I have to admit that The Girlfriend still isn’t up to going on bug hunts with me, and won’t act as a snake wrangler. Yet.
So, The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog had a volunteer engagement at the 
Adjacent to the butterfly house is a section of other critters in various small terrariums, and these present challenges of their own. Shooting through glass frequently presents difficulties, made worse if the glass isn’t perfectly clean – for some reason, the frogs seemed disinclined to wipe down their side. The best method for avoiding distortion is to shoot straight through the glass rather than at an angle, but this means your positions become quite limited. It also helps to reduce glare and stray reflections by being right against the glass, so if the terrarium is small this puts you very close to your subject – better have a lens that focuses quite close, or keep the extension tubes handy.
We’ll take a quick look at closer range, too, mostly to show off the color of the eyes. It’s not that this is especially interesting, though I could call this a product of my Green Phase if I was inclined to be pretentious. But insect eye color, and some bird feathers, often depends on light angle rather than inherent pigmentation. I have often noticed that the throat color of ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) doesn’t show up at all with direct flash, making it even more involved to try and get images that display this color. But I also have several arthropod images where the eyes take on a rainbow hue depending on the angle of the strobe. And so it was with this example, as I switched to augmented light for further images.
The net result of this is seen here, what I’m fairly certain is an Acanthocephala declivis, a variety of leaf-footed bug. The specimen is 30mm long, so not at all a small bug. The Girlfriend spotted it while out shopping one cold evening, sitting motionless on a sidewalk (the bug, not her.) Instead of stepping around (or on) it, she hunted about until she found a discarded drink cup, scooped it up, and brought it home for me to photograph. She had no knowledge of what it actually was, no idea of defensive mechanism or potential nastiness, but she knew I’d like it. Not to mention that it’s no longer the season for such subjects and my photography is slowing down commensurately, so I’m happy to have something to work with.