Photographing Insects: Winter is Coming

Now that most insects are gone, what to do next?

Wasps, like this European Paper Wasp, are still visiting my garden. But soon they will be gone. Photo by the author.

In the Netherlands, the insect season is largely over. There are still a few insects around, and there will be throughout the winter, but most are gone. So what am I going to do in the coming months?

There are hardly any flowers left. Most insects have done their work, which is reproduction. Most of them die. Some find a sheltered spot to survive during the winter. Their eggs or larvae are hidden in the ground to create a new generation in the spring.

For me, this is a good moment to look back on what I achieved and to think about what I going to do in the coming months.

Four months of insect photography

During the past four months, I have taken over 15.000 shots of insects. Starting with a kit lens and extension tubes, I moved up to using a true macro lens. An expensive decision, but one I never regretted.

My RF 100mm macro lens allowed me to easily take shots of tiny insects, like this jumping spider, caught using the pizza box method. Photo by the author.

I think that if you look at the 100 insect shots in the 25 articles I wrote these past months, you will see some improvement. I got much better at keeping the camera still, so the keep rate went up considerably, and also the sharpness improved. I learned how to position the camera in more interesting ways. I learned how to find interesting insects and, in particular, how to photograph much smaller species. I also learned some special techniques, like focus stacking.

But what is most important, I had a lot of fun. Finding insects you have not seen before feels like getting little presents. Managing to photograph them in an interesting way gives great satisfaction. And sometimes you happen to shoot these very special scenes, like the aphid giving birth, or some really rare insects, like the thread bug in the image below. But also a simple fly can be very nice when you photograph it from up close or in an interesting scene.

A thread bug (Empicoris rubromaculatus), that is very rare in the Netherlands. I found multiple ones in my garden. Photo by the author.

I also enjoyed writing all these articles on Medium. I now reached over 100 followers, which I am really happy with, for such a niche topic as insect photography. Thanks a lot for reading my articles and commenting on them. I hope you learned something and, maybe, you will start photographing your own insects.

What is next?

Without many insects to photograph, I have time to do other stuff. In particular, I plan to:

• Learn more about the insects I am photographing.
• Learn more about post-processing to improve my photos further.
• Try out some other interesting macro photography.

I will report on all these endeavors in future articles.

Shades of yellow. Also a simple hoverfly can make an interesting shot. Photo by the author.

Learning about insects

When you know more about your subjects, they become more interesting. In the past, determining the insects you photographed was really difficult. But nowadays there are websites and apps that do this for you. I use https://observation.org/ (or actually the Dutch version https://waarneming.nl/), which is a site for collecting sightings of plants and animals.

They are particularly good at insects. You need to create a free account, after which you can upload photos. The site will tell you what it thinks the insect is, with a certainty rating. You can then store those sightings and get overviews. You can also use the site to learn more about the insects and see shots taken by others.

The site was developed by scientists who want to know more about the distribution of insects. Tens of millions of sightings and photos are uploaded every year. I can tell you, it is rather addictive. You hope to see rare species and it is rewarding to see the total number of different species you saw, go up. I have now uploaded all my sightings of the past months. In total close to 400 different species. There are 40.000 different species of insects in the Netherlands, so I am now at 1%.

You can also use apps on your mobile phone. For example, there is ObsIdentify. It actually uses observation.org. It works in a similar way. You can upload one of your existing shots, or take a photo and upload it immediately. It then tells you what is in the photo. This app even has challenges and other game-like elements. Another very popular app is iNaturalist. This app has similar functionality, and it is also completely free. Another solution is Google Lens. Show it a picture of an insect and it shows other images on the web of the same insect.

And, finally, there are many Facebook groups on insects. Here specialists are willing to answer your questions about the insects you found. Best use a group dedicated to your country or region as insects are very different in different parts of the world.

During the coming weeks, I plan to write a series of articles about the different insect orders, giving some background information, showing some of my shots, and giving some advice on how to shoot them.

A Common Striped Woodlouse. Not really an insect as it has way too many legs. These creatures can also be found in winter. Photo by the author.

Post-processing

Some post-processing is required for almost all insect shots. I have a standard sequence of actions that I apply to most images, which I explained in an earlier article. However, I am now delving into techniques to improve the images even further. I am looking at more artistic ways to present the insects, for example in black and white. If this leads to anything interesting, I will write a further post-processing article about it.

More macro fun

Macro photography is much wider than insect photography. Flowers are very popular, but there are not many of those either in winter. But there are so many other topics. You can photograph ice crystals and snow, bubbles, leaves, water droplets, broken glass, and so on. And you can create interesting abstract images by looking at textures on stones, wood, and metal. There are whole communities around these topics.

A White Ermine night moth. There are species of moths all year around, so I will continue to try to attract them and photograph them. Photo by the author.

Conclusions

Even though there are not many insects around anymore, there are still possibilities to photograph them. And there is enough other interesting stuff to keep me busy.

A number of people have asked whether I could bundle my articles into a book. I have decided to do better. I am going to write a book dedicated to insect photography, talking about equipment, how to shoot insects, post-processing, and about the insects themselves. This will be a major project for this winter.

Next: October Shots

Previous: Positioning the Camera

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.