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Rhinoceros NL with fill flash:
I rarely get a chance to photograph against natural backgrounds, so when I found this rhinoceros beetle, and it was a bright and sunny day, I let it cling to a stick, and then I raised it up to the sky for some natural backdrop shots. Fill flash was needed to bring out the details of the dark beetle though.
Trap jaw ant with egg case:
Forest floor cockroach:
The most effective way I have found for photographing cockroaches and other carapaced insects like beetles is to get low and shoot upwards underneath the carapace. This gives you a good look at the head, and the legs which have lots of lines and are of interest.
Tiny ant at an extrafloral nectary:
Trapdoor orbweaver:
This spider builds a web but in its centre is a hanging house that looks like an inverted funnel. At its base is a hanging lip attached by silken threads. When the spider feels threatened, it retreats within this shelter and pulls the silken threads, which, like a drawbridge closes the gate to its home.
Oeda sp. treehopper:
Cockroach by moonlight:
This was an experiment with light. I had one flash mounted above the subject aimed directly down to light up the watery surface of the leaf, and one aimed directly up from below the leaf, to spill around it and light up the outline of the cockroach. I sharpened it as much as possible in the hopes of introducing halos to further the effect. Hopefully the effect seen is that of a cockroach that appears to be vaguely lit by a full moon. What do you think?
At the end of a hard day's work, there's nothing left to do but eat your web:
Web building spiders will eat their webs because why waste that protein rich silk! So at the end of every day they eat their webs and them build them anew the following day. Here the balled up web can be seen in the jaws of the spider as it is pulling the line towards itself to complete the task.
Thanks for looking and commenting.
PS. those looking for biology and stories accompanying the photos can read my blog: http://pbertner.wordpress.com/ .
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