I found this ladybug on one of our outdoor chair covers.  I didn’t feel this was the best place for it so I moved it to one of our rose bushes.

I’m not sure I did it any favors though as it seemed quite confused about its new surroundings.  Interestingly, most people consider lady bugs to be ‘cute’, but my wife did not thinks so of the following shot.

I also found a common visitor in my yard – the stink bug.  However, you’ll have to wait for tomorrow to see the stink bug as Flickr seems to have gone offline while I am writing this post.

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Here’s the first shot I got of it.

I managed to shoot a number of shots of it as it happily wandered around, searching I assume for small snack sized bugs.  More shots if this little one after the jump.

I find myself kicking myself over this shot, because if the beetle were just a bit higher on the blade of grass this would have been a very nice shot.  I really like the background in this shot – it looks almost like it was shot in a studio but this was a case where I did not transport the insect at all.  Still, I rather like the shot, but I wish I would have gotten it just a moment before.

At our local Home Depot of all places they currently have for sale a bag of 1/3 of a cup (or approximately 1500 in case you never bothered to measure) live lady bugs for your garden.  I tried to convince Nelya to let me buy one but she wants me to wait for the aphids to show up on the roses.  Probably all the better for photography anyway – as then I can photograph an aphid snack-fest.  The weather has also turned a bit cold and rainy again, so it’s not good weather to photograph.  I am still trying to warm her up to buying some praying mantises, which for some reason she is terrified of.  I guess the key term is “baby steps”.  She’s gone far enough to let me eventually pick up some lady bugs and we now have an ant farm in the house, so eventually I’ll get some praying mantises.

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Above is a small caterpillar that I found suspended near building 30.  I would have liked to get a number of shots of it but it was moving around so rapidly that I had a lot of difficulties getting this shot.  The shot won’t win any awards, but I do believe it is artful.  There are a number of emotions displayed here – freedom, dependency, soaring.

In my opinion the insect world is both a simplification and an exaggeration of our own.  Things like competition, love, and life are available in the insect world – but are displayed in a much more extreme measure.  Many emotions that are very complex for us are easily displayed in the insect world.  Take for instance this shot I took some time ago.

This is one of my favorite shots, and I do have it hanging on my wall at work.  I admit, most people would be rather turned off by this picture, but in my mind it displays so much more than simply a spider with an entrapped fly.

Another misconception from non-insect photographers is the creation of amazing insect shots relies entirely on technical skills and not artistic.  Granted, there are a number of technical skills to master in insect photography.  There is also the naturalist side- the top photographers learn a lot about the insects the photograph and make use of that information to get the best pictures.  However, there is another element – and that is the setup of the shot.  This is an area that I am currently working on, and I really don’t have a photograph that exemplifies this.  This one comes closest to it.

There are a number of flaws with this photo – particularly that the red of the rose takes too much from the shot.  When ladybugs return I plan to try to take a better version.  However, this shot was setup in a way.  I found a ladybug wandering in some grass and put it on the flower with the aphids.  My wife had no problems with this – as she was already annoyed that I wouldn’t let her use pesticides on the aphids in the garden.  The main distinction is I meant to take this exact shot – and I prepared the shot in a way to get it.

Other well known insect photographers deliberately place insects in places that are more photogenic.  After all, dirt isn’t generally a photogenic place. When they do this, they often sacrifice artistic merit for scientific accuracy.  I would argue that this shot still is accurate scientifically – as ladybugs are known to eat aphids.  In the future though I plan to follow this technique more though – where I design the shot rather than depend on the insects I find.

With the advent of high end macro lenses such as the MP-E 65, insect photography is rapidly increasing.  Many photographers often do start out the way I have – with taking accurate pictures of insects in the wild.  However a select few progress from this to create truly outstanding artistic photographs that contain insects.  I am not currently at this level, but I am striving to improve my art and skills so I will be.

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