What captivates

Red eyes, originally uploaded by imarsman.

This Flesh Fly has a lot going for it, photogenically. It's got big red eyes that draw human attention. It's body is grey, allowing the red eyes to stand out even more. This shot has the fly's head cocked a bit and one leg lifted off the leaf. If one wants to identify an insect one wishes a clear view of all major body parts. Aesthetics come with a different set of values. Aesthetically, it's ok to have a sharp foeground and fuzzy background, in fact, it looks better that way. I always feel so sad for the poor pinned bugs curled up and dessicated on their pins.

All that I got

All that I got, originally uploaded by imarsman.

There's a neat bee fly in our garden. He's brown and fuzzy. He tends to stay in one place for about ten seconds, then fly to a new spot or return pretty much to the same spot after flying around for a while. This bee fly is shy, so I've been trying to take a photo of him at much less than 1:1. This is the clearest I got, a photo captured just as he/she was taking off. I'm sad I didn't get more but happy I happened to get a clear shot of the takeoff.

Since I've moved from my obsession with photographing ants I've been having a bit of difficulty photographing things that aren't 5mm long. Ants, besides being small, are pretty horizontal, meaning that a lot can be captured with minimal depth of field. Bees on flowers or larger flies, wasps, and bees in general, are difficult to capture doing something ineresting at 1:1 magnification. Either depth of field limitations ruin important detail or interesting context just doesn't fit. I'm having to experiment with less than 1:1 magnification, flash levels, and aperture to keep getting good bokeh.