{"id":11579,"date":"2013-05-18T13:00:59","date_gmt":"2013-05-18T17:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=11579"},"modified":"2013-05-18T13:00:59","modified_gmt":"2013-05-18T17:00:59","slug":"drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2013\/05\/drama\/","title":{"rendered":"Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ll start with the artsy-fartsy one.<\/p>\n

\"EdgeOn\"
This came from a patch of wild daisies down near the river, many of which served as eyries for crab spiders (I think I’m mixing metaphors without goggles again) that were making a serious dent on the hymenoptera population in the area – every one I found either had a meal in chelicerae, or soon obtained one. They tended to be shy and sidled from the center of the bloom to the edges and underneath as I approached, meaning some of my shots were taken from flat on the ground aiming against the sky as the spiders tried to hide. But in the middle of it all, I just nabbed a quick perspective from a sitting position.<\/p>\n

Back home, I found another crab spider occupying the salvia plant<\/a> I’ve had for a while now, which has undergone two transplantings – the first almost killed it, but it recovered nicely with the second and is now blooming madly.<\/p>\n

\"SalviaCrab\"
This guy was hiding not so much from me, but from the collection of small red ants that had taken over the stalk for a short while – don’t ask me what defines the difference between food sources and deadly threats to spiders, because I don’t know, but the spider certainly wasn’t viewing the ants as an easy meal. Possibly it was idea that capturing one would have triggered a defensive odor that brought others swarming to attack.<\/p>\n

I’ve mentioned that some images are vastly improved by choosing the right angle to shoot from<\/a>, and this illustrates one example. On the same bushes housing the mantids have been a few assassin bugs, and typically what you might see in examining the bush would be something like this:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"SatelliteView\"
But a little effort in maneuvering and positioning can change the image dramatically, and even produce a faux<\/em> look of despair from the captured housefly:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"HelpMe\"
There’s so much at work here:<\/strong> the raindrop that produced a reflection from the flash, making the compound eyes appear to have a frantic wide-eyed look;<\/strong> the open-mouthed illusion;<\/strong> the fact that we never see flies not perched on their hexapod of legs;<\/strong> and even the peculiar angle of the head. All of it produces something we expect to see from people, not from insects, and makes us relate a bit more to what is strictly an imaginary emotion. It helps illustrate how we can be manipulated by inherent social reactions.<\/p>\n

And a tighter crop of the same image, because I’m pleased with the detail captured:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"BeyondHelp\"
If you see a goatee and perhaps even a tongue, shame on you – you’re not detaching yourself in a professional manner. But now you can’t unsee it, can you? ;-)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ll start with the artsy-fartsy one. This came from a patch of wild daisies down near the river, many of which served as eyries for crab spiders (I think I’m mixing metaphors without goggles again) that were making a serious dent on the hymenoptera population in the area – every one I found either had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[1774],"class_list":["post-11579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","tag-imagine-the-look-right-before-the-swatter-slams-down"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}