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
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,
I had to go back through my images to peg down this time frame, but ten weeks ago, a green lynx spider (Peucetia viridans) created an egg case on one of the flowering fronds of the pampas grass in the yard. I kept checking on progress, looking for spiderlings, but never saw anything,
North Carolina winters are usually not too dire, and we can count on some good outdoor weather pretty much throughout, but this doesn’t mean that good photo subjects will be as readily available, so I’m resigned (albeit reluctantly) to the arrival of the slow season. This little gallery is my minor act of defiance.
Above, a photo that’s harder to capture than you might imagine.
I got my timing down the other day, and caught a set of lady beetle eggs as they hatched. The eggs are 1.2mm in length – yes, I have a loupe with a micrometer scale – so the details you’re seeing here are pretty fine. As you can see, the larva are visible through the translucent shells.
Hatching isn’t quick by any stretch, but it can still happen entirely while you’re
… if you thought this was an ant. That’s really the whole idea.
I spotted one of these in one of my regular insect-hunting spots, but only got a single inadequate photo of it before it vanished under some leaves. Earlier today, I spotted it again – this time, venturing under the web tent shelter of a crab spider, who vacated quickly at the threat of course, my
I threatened earlier to return to this if you weren’t good, so you only have yourself to blame, but herewith, a quick tutorial on a method of macro photography called dark field photography.
Most times, this is used with microscopic subjects, which technically isn’t macro photography but photomicrography instead. The essence is, the visible background of the image is dark, yet the subject
Okay, I admit it: I have no idea what the hell “yore” is. But since it’s not the season for nature photography, I’m hearkening (yeah, ditto) back to a time when it was. That I’m intending to make this an occasional habit is indicated by the ‘part one’ in the title…
This past summer, a tree alongside the house played host to a fairly common sight, which
Gotta take a break from kittens…
Oh, you want to know just how big my subject really is? Okay, then:
Earlier I talked about some of the basics, so now I’m going to introduce you to a new form of cheating (but one that may make your life oh so easier and perhaps considerably longer because, you know, stress…): captive aquarium photography.
Aquatic subjects are something that takes considerable effort to capture in the wild, and much more so if you’re after small subjects that need