My first insect porn shoot
Last weekend for the first time we actually had a brief period of good weather, lasting from Saturday morning to early Sunday afternoon. In Seattle parlance, this was our “spring”. Most likely some day in late July or August will be our “summer”. Given the nice weather, Eitan and Nathan wanted to go outside to collect more ants for their ant farm so of course I obliged. However, after being outside for a few minutes Eitan pointed to something that made me stop.
Yes, this would be my first opportunity to photograph insect porn. In particular these were March flies, which in previous posts I have already photographed. That day the weather must have been perfect for this opportunity, as it did not take long to find more couples in the act. Naturally I was very excited and rushed to grab my camera - taking several shots only to figure out that I had left my flash card downstairs. After deciding the shots would come out better with a flash card, I proceeded to take a number of shots of the couple in action.
Therefore if you feel that you will be offended by March flies in various gratuitous positions please do not turn the page.
The above shot is how I found the first couple. At first I believed that this was the initial stage of courtship, but after further investigation I think this is the important part. It is hard to see from this shot but they are actually linked in the back. During this stage they moved very little, though I tried not to disturb them. They stayed like this for some time. I didn’t time it, but I was able to return several times to photograph them. The following shot, though a bit OOF on the heads, shows what is actually going on.
Here it seems apparent the transmission of fluids. As I mentioned before I believe that this is the final stage of mating. Here is a shot of how it begins.
The interesting thing about this arrangement is, if disturbed, they both take off in flight together attached as they are here. The fact that they are more mobile at this stage and also that the picture does not seem to show the necessary contact seems to show that this must be some type of foreplay. It certainly looks like a rather painful position on the part of whoever is on the bottom though. Here’s another shot of it - this one with a better crop and not as extreme shadow removal.
I think I like the first shot a bit better though - I probably just need to Photoshop out the blown out part in the upper left corner. Anyway it was a fun day of photographing and obviously a fun day for the March flies as well. I hope the weather gets better again soon so I can get out and take more shots!
Related posts:
- Some fly shots from the weekend Two weeks ago I had the time to take a number of shots outside and had the chance to get two flies (OK, two of them are March flies). This one looks like it was laughing at me. Actually the more I see flies up close, the more I want...
- Progression in macro insect photography For a fun post, I thought I would cover the progression that a macro photography typically makes. This covers both where I have started as well as where I hope to go. Stage 1 In this stage, you can recognize what insect the photo is of. With these shots, you...
- Experimenting with insect shots After reading Myrmecos’s blog on insect photography techniques I decided to try a few of the techniques for myself, particularly photographing on white paper. So I took a sheet of my kids’ construction paper and brought it outside. The weather here in the Pacific Northwest still isn’t great - and...
- Insect Wednesday Last weekend was a productive weekend for me, photography-wise. I wandered around my yard looking for interesting subjects and found several, without having to look very hard. This fly was very gracious to let me get several shots off. I also learned a new trick. One thing to make...
- Insect photography as art Recently I have been involved in discussions with some coworkers about insect photography in particular, and nature photography in general. The statement was that, though technically very challenging, most nature photography is not “artistic”. This goes back to the old “collectors vs. photographers” debate. Are you someone who simply finds...
Tags: fly, insect, macro, march fly, mating, photography, porn
The birds do it, the bees do it — and the flies do it too.
I don’t know the mechanics of the operation, but I have observed that many different flies remain coupled in flight if disturbed.
Great captures.
Once you go insect porn . . . . your photography will change to taking pictures of frogs doing it, butterflies , birds . . . etc..