Up close!

20150215_130656 copyDon’t seem to have been on here in months.  Thankfully I seem to have been kept busy with one thing and another.  To be honest, of late it’s been more of one thing than another as I seem to have been taking more photos of properties for a number of South Auckland Realtors.  Today, however, I experienced getting up close and personal with a praying mantis.

20150215_131210 copyAlways a challenge when you start to get close to things as focussing becomes quite awkward. Depth of field is virtually non-existent and this little creature wasn’t standing still. He was all over the place. Jumping from leaf to leaf and then doing his swaying and wobbling movements. Most of the images you see here were taken with a single diffused flash off camera pointed directly up to bounce the light off the white soffit just outside my front door. Looking through the camera viewfinder I could see the the praying mantis’s eyes looking straight back at me. Made me wonder if he could see himself in the lens and that was why he kept coming towards the camera! Below are a few more photos to amuse you. You’ll notice that as the size of the creature increases in the image so does the amount of the creature that is in focus. Quite a challenge to get focus. Obviously a lot more practice is required.

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