Photographing Insects: August Shots
The stories behind some of the shots I took in August
I again took many insect photographs in August. Here are the stories behind some of them.
Mother of Pearl
These butterflies are very beautiful, in particular, because they rest with their four wings spread open. But they have one nasty habit. They always sit at the bottom of leaves. They clearly prefer the dark side. When I first saw a few of them, it took ages before one sat down on a flower in a way I could photograph it nicely. You sometimes need a lot of patience. Of course, a couple of days later I came to another spot with the same butterflies. There were lots of them, and they sat down very close to me, showing all their beauty. I could approach them up to a few centimeters without them flying away. Still, this earlier shot was the nicest I think, with his head tilted slightly to the side.
On a ride
On a rather damp morning after a lot of rain, there were not too many insects around. There were lots of snails, but snails are not really my thing. So I was happy when I saw this fly sitting on top of one of the tiny snails. However, it was walking all over it. It took a long time before the fly took this nice posture, looking forward. The shot was considerably harder to take than it might look. The snail was sitting between lots of reed stems and leaves, so it was hard not to touch anything and scare the fly away. But I am happy with the result. The lighter leaf in the background behind the fly offers the desired contrast for the fly. Sometimes a little humor is nice.
Striped bug
These bugs have a much more interesting name in Dutch. They are called pyjama bugs. I had seen pictures of them before, and I wanted to get a shot of them myself. When I found a couple on a plant in a nature garden I was really happy. But the problem was that they have a very nice looking top with the stipes, but also a nice looking bottom with all the dots. So I tried to take a shot where you see both. This one was resting under some canopy of flowers. I like the composition, even though the eyes of the bug are not very visible. Since then I have seen them at many more places. They always invite you to photograph them.
Pink mistake
I read about a genetic modification that sometimes produces pink grasshoppers. So I got really excited when I saw this pinkish insect at the bottom of a thistle in an area where there were many grasshoppers. Only after I had taken a number of shots and managed to get a bit closer I realized this was not a grasshopper at all. It was actually a green shield bug. It turns out that the bottom of this very green insect can be orange/pink. So no rare modification after all, but still a nice shot.
Grass bug
On a beautiful, sunny morning I went out with a group of nature photographers to shoot insects. We went to a nice flower garden next to a castle. The flowers looked amazing. But unfortunately, there were primarily bees on them. With some effort, I managed to shoot some flies as well, but nothing really interesting. Then I decided to walk to a piece of grass and some bushes outside the flower garden. And here suddenly there were lots of nice insects, including the tiny grass bug above. So, always look for other opportunities. Insects are everywhere.
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Mark Overmars is a dedicated insect photographer that loves to share and regularly publishes about his work and about photography in general. You can visit his website at www.insectphotography.org. Download his free insect photography book at www.insectphotography.org/book.
