Insects

Insects are a perennial inspiration for my photography, when all else fails to inspire my camera forays out and about, I can almost always guarantee that an insect will find its way through my lens onto my sim.  The question is normally, what the heck is it and does it bite?

Luckily, most of the time that I am looming up closely with my camera, the victim (sorry, insect) is looking right back at me – watching my every move with deep suspicion. This can be as unnerving for me as it is for them.

The preying mantis, above, even bared its teeth at me, just because I wanted to reclaim my handkerchief. I had left it drying outside and only remembered it was there after dark, by which time, the mantid had decided it was a suitably soft and comfy place to spend the night. Needless to say, after that beast had made his home on it, the hankie went straight back in the wash…

Mantids make great subjects for photography as most are completely unafraid and mildly curious, so look straight into the camera lens

Although not all – after all, they wouldn’t want to make it too easy…

Locusts are a great subject, as they stay very still, while they are resting, barely flicking even a disdainful look in the camera’s direction. In addition, once they have located a good vantage point, they often make a habit of coming back to the same place the following few days. The one below returned to our door grille every day, at roughly the same time, for nearly a month!

Have to say that I am glad we had just had a new net put up…

Even flies can make a good subject, although I am not sure that I can honestly say that no creatures were hurt in the process, as he had to be re-homed, quite rapidly (hence the new netting in the previous shot…).

The cicada, above, was pretty useless at either camouflage or keeping a low profile – he was found quite quickly after making an incredible racket on a window ledge. If he was simply asking to be released back into the wild, it worked! You really can see why we needed that new net!

Once the net was put in, I am happy to say that the invasion of truly strange looking insects declined to zero. The net effect (sorry, couldn’t resist) was to drive me outside, back into the garden…

…where the biggest dilemma is now do I  photoshop the pictures to death, or not?  What do you think?

Before…

After…

PS – Just to show off a little and to prove I do actually research my photos – I think that the spider below is a Argiope lobata one of a species of spider belonging to the family Araneidae.

 

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