It's true. I'm inspired by the awe I feel when I capture an exquisite photo of the tiniest of winged or webbed life. I'll make a breathless run for my Nikon, hoping against hope that this tiny creature will remain where I discovered it. And I return, angling my lens this way and that, always knowing that there is a better shot with just another twist or turn of the camera or my body.
I reset my fstop for a larger aperture, perhaps f3.8 will give me the clear focus and the bokeh background I desire for the tiny six-legged creature I've discovered clinging to my window. While I fiddle for perfection, my subject may alight for another flower, another twig, another leaf, another yard. Even after I've discovered this minisculest of creatures, it's only after I see the photo I've caught, that I'm truly able to glimpse the extraordinary.
I reset my fstop for a larger aperture, perhaps f3.8 will give me the clear focus and the bokeh background I desire for the tiny six-legged creature I've discovered clinging to my window. While I fiddle for perfection, my subject may alight for another flower, another twig, another leaf, another yard. Even after I've discovered this minisculest of creatures, it's only after I see the photo I've caught, that I'm truly able to glimpse the extraordinary.
(Photo by SDouglasBuser)
Lately I've stopped more often to wonder on the minutiae of these delicate translucent, winged, antennaed, or webbed creatures. Perhaps after finishing Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is when I first began to see them everywhere, when I'm really open to seeing them. Really seeing them. And, to be sure, they are everywhere, in overabundance. In the aforementioned book, I read that these too-many-leggedy creatures can eat up to 80 lbs of other-many-leggedy-creatures in a year. I'm no entomologist and that fact does not excite me. It leaves goosebumps if I think too hard on it. Critters with too many legs send a shiver down my spine: Even walking through a gosssamer web will send me into a spinning dance.
I'm only a little ashamed to admit I admire them enough to photograph them. A little green tree frog's heaving belly or a skink's fiery blue tail as it clings to brick. The peaceful anole who's managed to escape my prowling cat. The praying mantis' swiveling head and beady eyes and prayerful legs. The lady bug's dotted shell, the frightening agriope's well-pregnant abdomen on her zippered web. A privet hawk moth clinging to my finger after I saved it from the sidewalk.
So large or tiny in perspective, and usually such a brief, albeit exciting, or terrifying life. I'm in awe over them. Regardless of what you and I think, they are really living. Really living. There is no concern for outward appearances. For how messy their home is. Or isn't. There is no comparison of self to bug or salamander or toad next door. (Unless bug next door happens to look like such a tasty morsel?) There is no lingering on love lost or love that might've been. (Is there?) There is no sadness over new chapters. Life just is.
Do they worry for tomorrow? Is there unadulterated joy? Exhausting tiredness? Do some meals taste more exquisite than others? Is there sorrow, hatred, or love? Does time seem to tick away to quickly for them? Are there moments of adoration or worshipful awe?
(Photo by SDouglasBuser)
I don't collect insect or reptile photos. I don't post them on social sites to surprise anyone. I photograph them or share them because of the awe filled thoughts that form while I'm circling my tiniest subjects for their best shot, prayerful that they'll hang around... just for one more second till I clinch that photo. There is also the interest they show towards me. It's a slow dance between the both of us. Wary of each other, yet a degree of fascination. I find them as challenging or interesting or lovely as any subject. And perhaps they feel the same about me? I'll never know. Still, I'm amazed by them. And thankful I see them in this light.
(Photo by SDouglasBuser)
(Photo by SDouglasBuser)
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(Photo by SDouglasBuser)
(Photo by SDouglasBuser)
(Photo by SDouglasBuser)
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