June 26, 2010

Wind. It is the bane of every macro photographer, at least the ones that I know. Even a little breeze can cause a sway in the object of your imaging desire that takes it well beyond the depth of field skills of even the steadiest. There's only so much you can bob and sway in rhythm to an undulating plant and its diminutive insect passenger.

Of course, like every cyclist knows, as soon as we show up with camera gear in tow the calmest day quickly dissolves into a pleasant breeze (and at times, a nice healthy gale). My macro pal, Art, has learned that he can often fight the ever present puckian zephyr by focusing closer to the ground. Walkers and bikers are often surprised to find Art, camera and gear at the ready, patiently lying in wait for that perfect shot.

Me? I look for the sturdiest plant and hope I can find a cooperative bug sturdy enough to weather the wind!

I often find yarrow to be a pretty stable plant in windy conditions, and was lucky enough to come across this great little hover fly (one of the bee mimic flies). You can often tell these, if you get close enough (which you should!), as their heads definitely have a flies features.
I am not sure what kind of critter this little green guy might be. I am thinking that this is a young form of some sort of true bug. To my uneducated eyes, it appears that his wings are not fully formed, which might give him a bit of an aphid sort of look.
I really like this image of an ant that I found patrolling along some stems. The gray band on his back side makes me suspect that this might be a carpenter ant.
Never ask a macro photographer to work in your yard. I often have my equipment set up and at the ready as I pull weeds...you never know what you might flush out of the undergrowth! Especially in my yard, where the undergrowth is taking over the overgrowth! I found this neat little inchworm hiding amongst some bindweed.
Quite a few sections of my yard house a surprising number of smaller wolf spiders. I really like these guys (I think this one might be a female) as they have large, prominent fangs. Horror movie stuff!

A nifty close up of a local harvestman. I would love to know how to tell the males apart from the female. In this image, you can just see the pair of primitive eyes, which apparently can detect a moving object several feet away (which explains how they deftly avoid mugging for the camera and quickly dart away).

July 4, 2009

The Denver metro are continues to receive an unusual amount of rain for the season, and the resulting plant growth certainly reflects the almost Seattle-like weather.  We are starting to see more and more spiders setting up shop in the garden, as well as some of the more interesting insects.

June 27, 2009

After several days of rain, hail, tornado activity, more rain followed by rain, we had the chance to go out and see who might have survived the continuing deluge.  These little beasties were captured in the gardens surrounding the Westminster Butterfly Pavilion.  A slight breeze and some minor camera mechanical snafu activity made today's photo shoot pretty interesting.  However, with all of that, we managed to capture some nice images!

June 02, 2009

Stepping away from Colorado bugs for a brief moment, I thought I would share an interesting little beastie that folks in the office found nestled amongst their grapes.  Imagine getting ready to reach for a morning treat and finding this fine painted beauty staring back at you!  My best guess on this one is a Northern Black Widow, perhaps a male or juvenile female.  She (or he) are currently living in a constructed environment in my living room.  [I finally had the chance to talk with the very nice folks at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and they believe that this is an immature female Western Black Widow.  Apparently, they lose these markings as they mature, eventually sporting the glossy black body with the characteristic red hourglass marking.]

May 31, 2009

We are slowly seeing the bees return to the garden, especially as the flowers really start blooming.  The total domination of lupin is slowly giving way to yarrow, Russian sage, bearded iris and a host of perennial flowers.

May 27, 2009

While waiting for some images to be printed, I wondered over to the garden to see if I could find any bees for an upcoming display.  Beautiful lighting, awesome flowers...no bugs!  The ants were out and about, working the Peony...and I finally found a couple of scavenging yellow jackets.  The light was so amazing, that I shot outside the box and captured a couple of flowers as well.