• Home
  • About Alex Wild
  • Articles
  • Galleries
  • Myrmecology News

Myrmecos Blog

the little things matter

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Friday Beetle Blogging: An Obscure Rove Beetle
Sunday Night Movie: Sesame Street goes Gangsta »

A few dead insects…

March 21, 2010 by myrmecos

I had an assignment this weekend to shoot preserved insects as if in a museum display collection. Dead bugs aren’t normally my thing, but there’s something to be said about subjects that stay put and allow me to arrange lighting without scurrying off. I pinned the insects in foam-bottomed trays and reflected the strobe off an overhead white board. More photos below.

Photo details (all): Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon EOS 50D
ISO 100, f5-f11, 1/40 sec, indirect strobe

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Taxonomy | Tagged entomology, Insects, Photography | 8 Comments

8 Responses

  1. on March 21, 2010 at 2:15 pm TGIQ

    PRETTY!


  2. on March 21, 2010 at 3:51 pm Tom

    I like the colors 🙂 Are you gonna do more David Attenborough movies in the future, Alex??


  3. on March 21, 2010 at 4:17 pm Mikey Bustos, AntsCanada

    Wow! I’ve always wondered if they use special chemicals to allow the insects to retain their exoskeleton pigmentation. Beautiful colours, especially those beetles!


  4. on March 21, 2010 at 4:42 pm Ainsley S

    Mikey– nope! Beetles come with their own built-in high-gloss wax coating, and the most colorful ones above (blue Eupholus weevils, green Chrysina scarabs, etc) get their colors not from pigments but from nanoscale photonic crystals made of chitin. That’s why pigment-colored things like ladybugs lose their colors after death, but structurally-colored species will stay iridescent as long as the specimen lasts.

    Alex, these are gorgeous– masterful blurring-out of the labels in the Hymenoptera picture. 🙂


  5. on March 21, 2010 at 11:07 pm Snail

    Those beetles, in particular, are stunning. I’ve never seen weevils quite that intensely blue before.


  6. on March 22, 2010 at 4:54 am Roberto Keller

    I really like the fact that you played with shallow depth of field to render the labels out of focus (and the foam too I guess)! Especially relevant for the Hymenoptera shot.


  7. on March 22, 2010 at 2:45 pm allthingsbiological

    Perhaps it’s the teacher in me… Aside from the stunning initial appearance of the image, this clearly shows how appropriate pinning allows the collector to see the entire structure of the specimen.

    This is really stunning, Alex. Can I get a larger copy of the image for a Field Biology handout?


  8. on March 23, 2010 at 3:10 am Melody

    I have dreams about seeing things like this. Beautiful!!



Comments are closed.


  • This blog is an archive; the Myrmecos blog has moved.

    Please update your bookmarks!
  • Alex’s Galleries

    alexanderwild.com

  • Recent Photos

    # SaloméArtificial Street Photography 1Kettering, Ohio, 2022IN WINTER'S GRIPVegetazione metallica.Un regard hypnotisant / A mesmerizing gaze
    More Photos
  • Biology Links

    • Tree of Life
    • Understanding Evolution
  • Blogroll

    • Ainsley Vs Livejournal
    • Ammonite
    • Anna’s Bee World
    • Archetype
    • Arthropoda blog
    • Backyard Arthropod Project
    • Beetles in the Bush
    • biodiversity in focus
    • Bug Dreams
    • Bug Eric
    • Bug Girl’s Blog
    • Burrard-Lucas Photoblog
    • Catalogue of Organisms
    • Creature Cast
    • Dan Heller
    • Debbie's Insect Blog
    • Dechronization
    • Drawing the MotMot
    • Entomoblog
    • Evolving Thoughts
    • Fall to Climb
    • Generant
    • Historias de Hormigas
    • Life on Six Legs
    • Macromite
    • microecos
    • mirmekolozi
    • myrmecoid
    • Myrmician
    • Natural Imagery
    • Nature in the Ozarks
    • NCSU Insect Blog
    • No Cropping Zone
    • omit needless words
    • Photo Synthesis
    • Princess Peppercloud
    • Science Blogs
    • Snail’s Tales
    • Stu Jenks
    • The Ant Hunter
    • The Ant Room
    • The Bug Whisperer
    • The Loom
    • This Week in Evolution
    • What's Bugging You?
    • Wild about Ants
    • Xenogere
  • Insect Links

    • Ant Farm Forum
    • Ant Insights
    • Antweb
    • Bug Squad
    • bugguide.net
    • Xerces Society
  • Photography Links

    • Canon Photography Forums
    • Digital Photography Review
    • DIY Photography
    • Igor Siwanowicz
    • Mark Plonsky
    • photo.net
    • Piotr Naskrecki
    • The Strobist
  • Popular Posts

    • Rover Ants (Brachymyrmex patagonicus), an emerging pest species
    • Specimen Request: Army/leafcutter/bullet ant queens for morphometrics
    • Friday Beetle Blogging: Nicrophorus orbicollis
    • Myrmecology enters the age of genomics
    • New Species: Coprophanaeus caroliae
    • Eureka! Heureka! An Astonishing New Ant!
    • Ants of the Paraná, then and now
    • Reader question: who discovered the sex of ant workers?
    • Army Ants of the North
    • My, what big eyes you have...
  • Recent Posts

    • This blog has moved.
    • Friday Beetle Blogging: The Hollyhock Weevil
    • The Friday Beetle will be late…
    • Bed bugs reach an all-time high
    • Answer to the Monday Night Mystery
  • Recent Comments

    • Donald Byron Johnson on Reader question: who discovered the sex of ant workers?
    • Anonymous on Update on the Rogue Taxonomist
    • Ant on Arizona Daily Star covers “Planet of the Ants”
    • Ga. Girl on Beware the Cow-Killer
    • Anonymous on Beware the Cow-Killer
  • Categories

  • Archives

  • animation Ants aphids arachnids Argentina arizona army ants art Bees beetles behavior biodiversity biology Biology Links bugs Canon carabidae coleoptera copyright Darwin desert diptera E. O. Wilson ecology entomology Evolution fail fire ants Flies formicidae genetics google haiku Harpegnathos imaging Insect Links Insects invasive species lighting Linepithema macro macrophotography macro photography Martialis media miniscule muppets music myrmecology mystery natural history Nature new species odontomachus Parasites Paratrechina pests pheidole Photography Photography business photoshop phylogenetics phylogeny Pogonomyrmex politics predation Scarabaeidae Science SEM social insects spiders Taxonomy termites travel wasps
  • Nature Blog Network
    Add to Technorati Favorites

    Follow this blog

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • Myrmecos Blog
    • Join 91 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Myrmecos Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: