Habitat Lost

Solitary Bee on Basil I
Originally uploaded by Dalantech.

One of the reasons why I haven't been shooting as much as I use to, other than I got burned out and needed a break, is that a lot of the areas I liked to shoot in are gone. I use to find the Wool Carder Bee, included with this post, at Lago de'Averno, sleeping in the Lavender that was planted along the jogging trail around the lake. Some of the people who visited the lake couldn't resist picking that flower, and what the locals didn't take a very voracious beetle ate the rest. Now that the city is paying someone to maintain the jogging trail there aren't any wildflowers around the lake either, so the only habitat for these magnificent creatures is on private land that I don't have access to.

Now that I'm living in a house with a yard I'm looking at the flowering plants and I'm trying to make sure that the critters have something to eat year round. Just this morning I spotted a male Wool Carder Bee tackle and mate with a female while she was feeding on the flowers in my basil. Hopefully it's the beginning of my own population of them :)

As for the photo itself: I spotted this bee sleeping in my basil in the evening, but waited until the next morning to photograph it. Large solitary bees like this one can get their metabolism going pretty easy, so had I tried to shoot it that evening it just would have flown away. Even though it was cooler in the morning it was still able to put up its front legs in a defensive posture, so I had to move slowly when approaching it with the camera.

I cut the flower that it was perched on with a pair of scissors, again being careful not to move it too fast. I then cleaned off the basil flowers in front of it, since they'd just be in the foreground and out of focus (too distracting). Then I simply held on to the basil flower with my left hand, rested the camera on that same hand so that everything was on the same "platform", and focused by sliding the lens on my hand (what I call the Left Hand Brace Technique). Being in full control of the motion in the scene leaves very little motion for the flash to freeze, and it's one of the reasons why I can get a lot of detail in a macro image even though I'm shooting at a relatively high Fstop. A lot of the image softening that most people blame on diffraction is really just motion blur...

Controlling the angle between the bee and the sensor on the camera is as easy as moving the flower between my thumb and index finger. What I look for is a "magic angle" that will make the most of what little depth I have in a single frame. Looking for new compositions and angles is easy since I'm not restricted by a focusing rail, and now that I've been shooting hand held for several years the muscle memory needed to move the subject and focus the scene is permanent (I can go months without holding a camera and still nail the focus and angle).

Last but not least: I'm not special, anyone can shoot the way I do -it just takes practice. Until next time happy shooting :)

Look for Something Interesting

Anchored
Originally uploaded by Dalantech.

In May of this year I moved into a villa, and we now have a small back yard that we’ve been filling with flowers. My wife bought a vine with large white flowers and a small species of solitary bee took up residence in it. Since this is our first year here I thought about leaving them alone, but I just couldn’t resist the temptation to take one flower apart and take a few photos. It’s been a long time since I’ve taken any macro photos and I needed the practice.

The bee was really small, only about a millimeter wide and a few millimeters long, and due to the way that it has anchored itself to the flower’s stamen my first attempt at framing the critter were really poor. Looking at the images that I had taken, and at the bee’s perch, I decided to look for a different angle. If I couldn’t find something more interesting I’d have to call the entire session practice and bin all of the photos that I took. After completely rearranging my table top studio I managed to get the scene I was looking for and it’s was then that I noticed something really amazing…

The bee had anchored itself to the flower’s stamen with its proboscis!

I’ve never seen that behavior before; normally a bee will clamp onto a plant stem with their mandibles when they sleep. But this one was using its tongue :)

I shot a short video of the studio that I set up so you can see how I took the shoot. Pretty simple really, but the clamps allow me to use both hands to steady the camera.

Extreme Macro -the Art of Patience eBook

Extreme Macro -the Art of Patience is now available as an eBook. You can also order it via iTunes

Featured in Holy Crop!

When Rikk Flohr first contacted my via a private message at Deviant Art to let me know that he was featuring my blog I had mixed reservations. But after reading a few posts at Holy Crop! I realized that Rikk was basically saying what I have (that you need to get it right with the camera) and he's not a priest in the church of "fix it in post". Go on over and give it his blog a read!

Published by AMC Outdoors

Tuscany series 1-1
Originally uploaded by Dalantech.

This image of a Cuckoo Bee was published by AMC Outdoors. It was a pleasure to work with their staff -very professional!

Post Moderation Part Two

The latest technique that the spammers are using is to send a compliment with a link to a web site embedded in it, like this one:

"Always so interesting to visit your site. What a great info, thank you for sharing. this will help me so much in my learning.
security equipment"

Of course "security equipment" is a hyperlink to the site the spammer is trying to advertise.

*sigh*

You have my word that if you comment on a post, even if it's extremely negative, I'll approve it for publication as long as it's not spam. My intent is not to filter out any potential negativity -I learn from all of your comments. I just don't like having to go through all the comments to delete the spam.

Learn to Lie

Hungry Moth at 5x
Originally uploaded by Dalantech.

If you're a pretty good photographer then you're also a pretty good liar. You might not know it, or want to admit it, but it's true. By taking a photo you're taking the subject out of context and presenting it in a way that you didn't see it with your naked eye. Take the moth included with this post: I saw a water bottle with a blue label on it in the background, but you see what might look like a blue sky.

The trick to pulling off that lie was in knowing that I didn't want the background to be black, if it were then the scene might seem out of place even though most moths are nocturnal. So I deliberately placed the water bottle behind the critter to give the flash something to reflect off of. It had natural spring water in it, if that makes you feel better ;)

Once you realize that photography is a lie then you can start pushing the envelope to create "realistic" scenes. Like using a second flash to illuminate a vinyl table cloth that has a floral print on it. Is it "natural"? No, but it looks natural and that's all the matters.



Now some of you might shoot only using natural light because it looks more realistic -closer to the way that you actually viewed the scene. But how many of you used a reflector to get more of that sunlight into the subject?

Liars... :)

Macro by definition is not a natural form of photography -no one sees the world with the level of detail that we macro photographers can capture. So there's no need to constrain yourself since no matter what you do the final image really isn't natural anyway. The better you get at lying the easier it is to trick the viewer into thinking that the scene is normal, that nothing is out of place. They'll spend more time appreciating the image as a whole instead of picking it apart because it doesn't look right.

So learn to lie...