One reason I wanted a digital camera was to document the diversity of life in my backyard. Flowers hold still, so I am having the most luck with them:
What I have discovered about insect photography is that it is far from easy. This past weekend I tried my hand first with bees which, I discovered, were downright rude. A bee would settle on a flower, but before I could focus the camera, it would dive head first into the pollen, wagging its butt at the lens, refusing to give me more than a shot of its abdomen. Because of the painful stinger, I knew better than to jiggle the branch to hurry it along. I would patiently wait, my eye squinting through the lens, for the little shit to emerge, and just when I had to scratch my nose or shift my weight, the bee would rise from the flower, buzz the camera like Tom Cruise in Top Gun, and fly off, leaving me with no picture or just bee blur, like this:
Butterflies were more polite but equally hard to photograph. Flit is the verb I associate with butterflies; it is a verb that does not denote speed. While I was chasing a butterfly with a camera, flit became zip like a UFO, dive bomb like a kamikaze. Everyone should try photographing butterflies just one time to gain more respect for the pictures in National Geographic, where the insect has clear, perfectly extended wings.
This morning I had better luck with a lady bug, although I am disappointed in myself for such hackneyed pictures:
