macro
awild | December 17, 2008In an earlier post I listed my favorite insect images of the year taken by other photographers. Now it's my turn. Here is the best of my own work over the last 12 months.
Laccophilus pictus, Arizona
Dinoponera australis, Argentina
Parasitic Cotesia wasp attacks a Manduca larva
Polyrhachis schlueteri, South Africa
Crematogaster tricolor, South Africa
Weaver Ant (Oecophylla longinoda), South Africa
Rose Aphids (Macrosiphum rosae), Arizona
Thaumatomyrmex atrox, Venezuela
Simopelta queen and workers, Venezuela
Pheidole obtusospinosa, Arizona
Harpegnathos saltator, India
zooillogix | August 21, 2008Some incredible early morning shots of wet insects by German photographer Martin Amm.
Red veined darter
Horsefly
more below the fold
Emerald damselfly
Breakfast
Check out more of his work here
awild | March 23, 2008
Rather than blather on about my Easter Sunday, I'll just share a few images from a morning hike in Tucson's Rincon mountains. Winter rains have given way to wildflowers, and in particular the Encelia brittlebush was spectacular.
Prickly pear:
A hoverfly guards his territory:
Pheidole worker ant gathering nectar from a barrel cactus:
Honeypot ants emerging from their nest:
Close-up of Aphaenogaster cockerelli, a common harvester ant:
awild | February 13, 2008
 Formica accreta, Northern California
I wish I could say I knew what these ants were doing. Hiding from the photographer, perhaps? Formica of the fusca species group are notoriously shy insects, but not all of these ones seemed to be equally spooked.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon D60.
f/13, 1/200 sec, ISO 100
Twin flash diffused through tracing paper.
Levels adjusted in Photoshop.
awild | February 9, 2008
In 1934, a diminutive book by an unknown author seeded the largest conservation movement in history. The book, Roger Tory Peterson's A Field Guide to the Birds, pioneered the modern field guide format with crisp illustrations of diagnostic characters, all in a pocket-sized read. The Guide sold out in a week, but the book's effects are ongoing.
To understand the magnitude of Peterson's impact, consider how naturalists traditionally identified birds. They'd take a shotgun into the field, and if they saw something of interest they'd kill it. Birding was necessarily limited to the landed-…
awild | February 8, 2008
Dineutes sublineatus - whirligig beetle
Arizona, USA
Whirligigs are masters of the thin interface between air and water, predating on animals caught in the surface tension.  In the field it can be hard to appreciate the finely sculptured details of their bodies, the erratic movements that give them their name also make them hard to observe and to catch.
photo details: Canon 100mm f2.8Â macro lens on a Canon 20D
f/18, 1/250 sec, ISO 100
Beetles in a 5-gallon aquarium with a colored posterboard for backdrop.
Off-camera flash bounced off white paper.
Levels adjusted in Photoshop.
awild | February 3, 2008I have thousands of absolutely awful photographs on my hard drive. I normally delete the screw-ups on camera as soon as they happen, but enough seep through that even after the initial cut they outnumber the good photos by at least 3 to 1. Here are a few of my favorite worst shots.
Thinking that nothing would be cooler than an action shot of a fruit fly in mid-air, I spent an entire evening trying to photograph flies hovering over a rotting banana. This shot is the closest I came to getting anything in focus.
That's a nice finger in the background. It's mine, you know.
Imagine how…
awild | February 1, 2008My early bug photos, the ones I don't show anyone anymore, are poorly-exposed affairs that now sit hidden in my files. If I had to put my finger on the single biggest problem with these embarrassing first attempts, I'd say that I lacked an eye for composition. I was so intent on getting the bug in focus somewhere in the LCD that I paid no attention to what else ended up sharing the frame. Turns out, all sorts of extraneous crud. Bits of grass. Dust. My finger. Many of these images are so crowded that it just isn't clear what I ought to be looking at.
Understanding why busy compositions…
awild | February 1, 2008
Onthophagus gazella
Gazelle Scarab, Arizona
At my current rate of once-a-week Beetle Blogging, I'll need 10,000 years to cover every living species.
Wish me luck.
photo details: Beetle attracted to UV light
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon 20D
f/13, 1/250 sec, ISO 100
flash diffused through tracing paper
levels adjusted in Photoshop; slight lateral crop
awild | January 21, 2008For your viewing pleasure I've set up a new Hemiptera gallery at www.alexanderwild.com. Hemiptera are the "True Bugs", a large order of insects defined by having the mouthparts modified into a hollow beak. You can visit the gallery here:
Bountiful Bugs Photo Gallery!
I admit being a little embarrassed at how few photographs I have of true bugs. They are a stunningly diverse order of insects, with a great many attractive species, and are extremely important both economically and ecologically.
awild | January 7, 2008
Common caricatures of Darwinian evolution evoke nature as a brutal force, one of ruthless competition in which the strongest prevail. In truth evolutionary processes can be much more nuanced. Under a wide array of conditions, species find Darwinian advantage in cooperative relationships.
Some of the most striking cases of evolutionary partnerships involve the planet's dominant primary producers, the plants, and the most abundant insects, the ants. Ants are exceptional predators, and several groups of plants have figured out that by housing and feeding resident ant colonies they gain a…
awild | December 9, 2007Flash is a necessary evil in insect photography. This necessity is due to two unfortunate traits shared by most insects: small size and stubborn unwillingness to sit still for the camera. These traits confound each other in a way that renders insect photography uniquely challenging. Small subjects need to be close to the lens, placing them squarely in the zone where depth of field becomes razor-thin. Depth of field can be increased by using a small aperture, but that restricts the amount of light reaching the sensor. With so little light entering the camera, a proper exposure requires…
awild | December 2, 2007
A few months ago I started playing about with the placement of the flash unit, and almost immediately hit on a new favorite trick. When lit from behind, insects look even more zingy than usual. Their translucent bodies glow, they are ringed with little halos, and they stand out dramatically against the background. Below the fold are some samples:
Backlighting involves two major elements. The first is a relatively high-intensity light shining directly on the subject from the opposite direction of the camera. This light gives translucent insects their glow and provides the halo…