I always enjoy getting out and taking some pictures of bugs, so I was very happy that during the weekend we had a brief respite from the rain so I could get out and photograph. The frustrating thing with insect photography is figuring out what I took pictures of afterwards. Despite the fact that most of my shots are from my backyard, I’m still finding new bugs each time I photograph. At first things were a bit slow, so I took this picture of a dandelion while looking for interesting critters.
This image is part of a ‘geometry in nature’ series that I am working on, though I doubt it will end up in the final collection. It came out as I expected, but I haven’t been able to make the yellow stronger and I think the shot is missing some ‘oomph’ in general.
Soon after that my patience was rewarded with a small beetle.
After spending some time going through my insect books, I can with confidence say that I have no idea what type of beetle this is. The large eyes and markings on its back should make it conspicuous, but I didn’t find anything that looked like it in my books. As there are a tremendous number of beetle species, it’s possible I will need a specialist book to identify it.
A short time after the beetle I got my first fly of the year (as Tom would say “CHECK”). Obviously I have seen other flies this year, but this is the first one that was still enough to let me get a good shot. I hope to have some better shots as things get warmer and I have more opportunities to shoot flies.
Interestingly some of my coworkers found this shot interesting for the drab colors – almost like a black and white image. I may play with this image a bit in the future to see what I can do with it. I haven’t spent much time figuring out what type of fly this is, but given the number of families and species I suspect it won’t be easy to figure it out.
Finally I found this interesting bug.
This is the leaf that I found it on originally. I then tried to use it with my flower experiment but it didn’t want a part of that. I’m still not exactly sure what this is, but given the antennas, back, and eyes I suspect it is a type of fly. From my insect book it looks similar to a xylophagid fly, but there are a number of differences in the pictures I have seen.
So in terms of photography it was a successful day, but in terms of figuring out what I photographed I have some work remaining.
3 Comments
March 28, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Wow, that fly shot is very cool, especially the detail in the eye.
March 28, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Not really sure if I can help you with this last bug! It’s a great shot whatever it is!
March 30, 2008 at 9:39 am
I sometimes think I’d be much better off if I did not spend so much time trying to identify everything I photograph, but I cannot resist the temptation.