The clean version (the one I find hard to remember as opposed to the filthy one) of “My Favourite Things” starts with the line of the title…the purpose of this whimsy will come later (it has been a very long day).
Some comments made by Robert Thompson in one of the occasional emails we exchange have prompted me to put form to an idea I had been mulling over for some time. For anyone who does not know Robert is an excellent photographer based in Ireland who, together with Brian Nelson has produced classic books of The Butterflies and Moths of Northern Ireland, The Natural History of Ireland’s Dragonflies…The Orchids of Ireland (with Tom Curtis) and Close-Up and Macro: A Photographer’s Guide…
His books on the flora and insect fauna of Ireland are substantial volumes beautiful illustrated with Roberts superb photos and authoritative in detail…text, maps drawings. Books like this are seldom produced anymore when so many publishers go for the anodyne that they can translate into a few languages and cover costs… There is a point in these books they are a genuine contribution.
The matter under discussion was the fact that modern digital technology allows anyone with a digital camera to take passable and better close-up shots. That, I believe can/could be a force for the good but there is another side to it. For the uninitiated (eg some editors) one picture might seem much like another: the difference is one is taken by a naturalist who has studied the subject for years and the other you can get for a few cents on-line.
Look closely and the true devil is in the detail – I’ll give two examples and maybe you can agree, disagree or put it down to grumbles.
Robert mentioned a current fashion for droplets on insects ‘taken early morning’ or even middle of the night. The droplets are the result of a mist/high humidity and form on the creature’s body…very pretty. With Pierre-Joseph Redouté it became a trademark to show raindrops in his exquisite paintings of roses.
thanks to water's surface tension droplets quickly tend to coalesce during and after rain or the formation of a morning dew
I have spent a lot of time out and about and am an early riser…Robert, too and we both felt that we had seen something like this very rarely: let’s face it he is Irish, I hail from Wales and boy do you get ‘moisture’. When you do see it, the drops formed in nature coalesce to some extent…on so many photographs they are tiny, evenly-sized. They look atomised and, indeed, I would contend that many pictures are aided by a garden spray… to the cognoscenti it looks wrong.
When I started taking photographs of insects the few books that mentioned the subject always suggested that insects should be cooled in the salad crisper part of the fridge…not the freezer. I admit I once tried it with a very active great green bush cricket – it was the only time I ever did this. The hapless animal warmed up but before it did its legs were splayed in unnatural positions and a fine cover of tiny droplets condensed on the body. In practice it meant that, later, when judging the photos of others I knew what had been done. On a personal note, I wondered what the hell was I, someone who professed to be passionate about nature, doing in recording something in this artificial way ? Maybe I should improve my techniques, choose my times of day and record what is natural…yes, I have and do raise insects (which are local) and then release them – taking the opportunity to photography butterflies as they emerge. Nothing is hurt in the process…I cannot accord with the view that its only an insect. My take is that I am photographing to try and show its beauty, a form of reverence, then maybe I should show it a bit of consideration.
spider webs covered with dew are one of the best examples of condensation: they are not living and moving though...
That brings me on neatly to another practice that is obvious on the internet. I have been experimenting in using Helicon for getting stunning depth of field in close-up shots. It is far from easy with natural subjects since they move fractionally either under their own steam or in a breeze. If a flash goes off insects flinch and heads do not return to the same position. If you are hyper-critical than close-examination of a stack of images shows the result of poor registration. My current solution is to use a shallow depth of field and fast shutter speed with natural light…more on this soon.
the ability to create depth of field fat better than one might ever have imagined is possible with Helicon Focus
Insects can be slowed down for photography – the process is called death, though colours of eyes, for example fade quickly. Recently, when looking at some remarkable shots with the kind of depth of field you get from a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) I looked at accompanying comments to see someone asking openly about how it was best to kill insects for this kind of photography. OK they are only bugs, we swat them or spray then…but here is someone wanting to reveal the beauty, for selfish reasons, and I am not happy with that.
So, tell me I am being stupid, over fussy: it won’t be the first time…does it matter, they produce thousands of eggs so many die, etc etc. Accepted (to some extent) but I hold that to celebrate the beauty and kill the creature to achieve that shows the same disregard for life as those Victorian collectors who filled endless trays with butterflies on pins or glass cabinets with every Hummingbird or Bird of Paradise they could shoot…).
It is harder to capture living creature even with modern digital cameras – there is a difference and many people seeing those images do not realise that. Those amazing shots of insect eyes with a depth of field that seems scarcely possible to those of us who have been trying for aeons to balance small apertures with the onset of diffraction…are labelled studio shots. This is euphemism: they are dead, deceased they are no more….their mortal coils have been shuffled orf…
There is a case for a certain amount of collecting for scientific record though one could wax lyrical about the abuse of that term ‘scientific’.
I have been around in this game for a while and have met many people involved with still and moving images…there are dilemmas. When Heinz Sielmann produced his epoch-making sequences of an eagle attacking a young goat…the tether was not obvious. I have heard tales of ‘stuffed’ swallows swooping down to drink with back mounted cameras and moving on a wire…I could go on. Times have changed and many cameramen/photographers who are dedicated to nature and revealing the stories have a strong commitment to realism and brook no intervention that creates perturbations in behaviour. I can remember as a kid watching Walt Disney’s “The Living Desert” – anthropomorphism with living creatures…enough said.
water is might be common but its physics and chemistry is far from simple.
Something that Robert raised and that concerns me is a raft of so-called nature photographers for who the image is all: for those of us introduced to nature as kids the image is the end point of a long process that has involved a hell of a lot of learning on the way. Maybe it is old-fashioned of me to suggest they should get out and learn a bit about the biology and ecology of it all?
One of the things you find if you venture into print is that there is always somewhere out there waiting for you to slip. They write a review (so much easier nowadays with an on-line post) and go for what a friend of mine used to call the “trivial jugular”. You take something small, wax lyrical on it, scoff and show your superiority.
However fastidious you are about checking (I am fanatical) you can and will make mistakes… you see them the first time you open a new book and you cringe. Often you cannot bear to pick it up again for a while. If that sounds like painful memory it is – the first book I wrote Wild Orchids of Britain & Europe was a collaboration with the late Anthony Huxley. Anthony had a lot of other things on the go so I wrote and illustrated it (both with most of the pictures and with line drawings). Anthony felt we should utilise the classification system in the then recently-published Flora Europaea Vol V: I thought it misguided: Rezso Soó (1903- 1980) the author of the Orchidaceae section had not been out of Hungary for decades. I was young and did not have the confidence/temerity to insist. I was the one who took the brickbats: praise (and there was a lot) was shared!
I am interested to know how others resolve those dilemmas – is there a point at which we make decisions about higher life-forms where furry things with big appealing eyes are protected and lower forms can be treated as we wish. Here we get into realms of sensitivity of nervous systems and so on…So, what about spiders – do we penalise them for having more than one pair of eyes and too many legs: “two legs good, eight legs BAD”.
For me it is a part of the respect I have for nature – OK I’m a ‘namby, pamby’ veggie but certainly not evangelical about it. My better half is a dedicated carnivore…But there is more to it than that. Over to you.
Hi Paul,
Here’s a post where a lot of right ideas have been said and some less accurate at least from my point of view (including that we can consider you stupid!).
I will try to gather my thoughts and harder, trying to recreate the beautiful language of Shakespeare (I’m French and it is well known, the French are bad at foreign language).
I want to actually tell your about parallel to my own experience as a photographer and “macro-photographer.”
Certainly as you point out, digital technology now allows everyone to access the world of macrography and thus of course be trying to photograph insects up close, very close to them. But when the technology reaches those limits, it is the knowledge of his subject, these behaviors and their habitat to make the relay. And therefore, knowledge of the photographer, if he has any, to assist creativity. I think that the crucial point that makes all the difference between a photograph taken by a photographer and naturalizes the one made by an amateur photographer who just take pleasure in buying a super macro lens.
Although many practices more or less admitted were put into action by many people simply to obtain the “image”. And sometimes good image of their technical level. Yet it is unfortunate, I do agree with you, having to kill an arthropod (even a spider!) For so do resurface beauty. In my opinion the two acts are totally incompatible.
When I was young, I intended to become a scientist and as I was extremely curious to know everything around me, I quickly wanted to make an insect collection. Yet I saw no interest to capture and kill insects, for the sole purpose of being able to make a mini-inventory of insects living around my house. They died for this sole purpose, to satisfy me, seemed neither desirable nor necessary. So I started to recover the insects killed by cars driving along the roads. And to my surprise this original sample was very high in numbers. But species that I collected in this context is mainly limited to Coleoptera, Diptera and Hymenoptera. Hence I started in photography, starting with a simple tool.
All that to say that if I came to practice photography in order to avoid unnecessary collection of dead animals (I know several people who have home stuffed birds and mammals!), This did not likely to kill to obtain an extraordinary image!
In addition, to abound still in your way, I am convinced that the idea of learning the basics of biology and ecology is far from being an old fashioned idea I myself have an academic background in biology of animal populations and ecosystems, and I can tell you that I use this knowledge constantly in the field.
To go further and at the same time bouncing on a previous post. These practices kill an insect for an extreme close up or freeze to obtain droplets, but also use as live bait for owls …. so on, are practices which is the consciousness each. If a person, photographer or cameraman is not able to see that the methods he employs are the opposite of what he wants to show “the beauty of nature around us, then this problem with the Ethics can not be addressed by a form of education. It may be that we are conscious of trying to open the eyes of others and show them that the price paid for certain image not worth the trouble and the satisfaction of the ego does something that is ephemeral.
Finally I also celebrated on the eight-legged arachnids, I just work with a scientist from the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris (Christine Rollard) an inventory of spiders of the Mercantour National Park. I was able to approach these animals with someone who not only know well but also deeply respect. I obviously made a lot of photographs both in natural environment as close in mid reconstituted on the wooden table outside the cottage. Despite the constraints, the wishes and directives of the publisher, no animals were killed or suffered any damage. The photos are beautiful (in the words of the editor) and my side my conscience clear.
People do not like spiders! Well I hope we can make them change their minds (also very beautiful Thomisidae Paul!)
Best regards.
Denis
Hi Denis,
Many thanks for your thoughtful contribution…you say the French are bad at languages well so are the Brits (they just speak louder) – some British people have lived here in Italy for twenty years and cannot be bothered to make the effort to speak a word of Italian. They are proud of their ignorance as if they are above it all. I wish I could write French and Italian as well as you do English…
No-one has to be a professional graduate biologist to be a good nature photographer just the love of the subject which means it is never an effort to ‘learn’…in fact a background in other disciplines can help develop together a different view on nature. I always recall that many of the best botanists I have known at Kew came from other disciplines (eg law, chemistry, geology…)…my own is physics/mathematics and then mathematical biology (but the natural history was always there and, indeed when I began most university courses had little to do with the natural world..specimens in bottles, on collecting boards and in botanical vascula…
Problems lie with those who come with the view that this is somewhere to create images and to make money…nothing wrong with the latter, we all have to live. However, those that I know who are of that ilk have a very convenient morality when it comes to justifying what needs to be done to get an image…there is no real feel for their subjects. The end justifies the means every time and it shows in images without soul…
We are in one of those uncertain periods where anyone with a decent camera can take what look like ‘good’ nature pictures. I am involved in several projects to try and turn that initial fascination with the image to good account in nature…the message is to find out, learn, watch and those pictures get special. This is where I think those who put in the time as naturalists will be rewarded when people soon tire of the same shots of the same species even if they are well-exposed.
I hope we shall see some of your spider pics sometime – I am relatively new to arachnophilia but over the past few years some of my favourite pics have been of these fascinating creatures. Sounds like a lovely project – the Mercantour is fabulous.
best regards
Paul
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Hi Paul,
A very interesting post, eloquently written as ever. I share your principles entirely – my profound interest in the natural world came before my interest in photography and my priorities when taking an image reflect that ordering; my subject’s welfare first, the photograph second. (I’m also another namby, pamby veggie!).
I also share your suspicions regarding certain insect images and the circumstances in which they were taken, however I don’t think it’s quite so easy to spot an image that has been taken in a dubious manner. I’ll give a couple of examples. I’m a big fan of the early morning dew-covered look and do regularly find insects covered in the very fine droplets that you mention in your post. In mid-summer I tend to go out very early, particularly if there is a clear sky meaning the temperature dropped overnight. If, in addition, I am photographing next to an expanse of water, which will often be mist covered, then I do often find dew-covered insects. The images below are just 2 examples – I’m sure many must suspect these had the spray treatment, but they genuinely didn’t and I have many similar images, particularly of damselflies.
http://www.mattcolephotography.co.uk/Galleries/insects/Butterflies/slides/Small%20Skipper%203.html
http://www.mattcolephotography.co.uk/Galleries/insects/Flies/slides/Robber%20Fly.html
A second example concerns high magnification, flash images. It’s true that some photographers will use dead insects as their specimens but I do hope these are a small minority. I take a lot of high magnification images with my MPE-65 macro lens and generally light them entirely by flash. There are quite a large number of insects that do not flinch at all when the flash fires so, again, we shouldn’t necessarily assume that a high magnification flash-lit image must be of a dead specimen in a studio. In fact, in my experience, the ‘flinchers’ are the minority and tend to be certain small flies and certain butterflies (but by no means all butterflies). The image below is one recent example. It’s a Crane Fly taken at around 4x magnification (on a 1.6 crop body), 2 shots focus stacked, both entirely lit by flash with the insect sat on a yellow Autumn leaf on my patio.
http://www.mattcolephotography.co.uk/Galleries/Latest%20Images/slides/Crane%20Fly%203.html
So, while there is no doubt that shady practices do occur, it’s possible that they’re not as common as we might at first think.
best wishes,
Matt
Hi Matt,
First – to anyone reading these comments just go to the links that Matt has provided – sorry I cannot make the direct link via the answers only when I post. These shots are simply glorious Matt – you capture the best of the freshness that genuine droplets bring.
Thanks you very much for ‘coming back at me’ on my comments Matt – I appreciate that for the intention is always to stimulate some sort of debate/comment even shouts of rubbish, from other who try these things
You are right, It is NOT easy to spot but in your shots the condensation is on the insect and not the surrounding vegetation to the same extent…using a spray of any sort it would be impossible to restrict it in the same way. Also the droplets are of slightly different sizes and have coalesced. Most folk who use sprays do not wait. I suspect that the insects and the plants they sit on are at different temperatures due to their internal chemistry (though how one might measure that is open to speculation) and condensation rates on each differ.
The shots you have of the insect eyes I notice are taken with comparatively few stacked images…my suspicions are with those where the photographer says, 20, 50 or more….
Interested in your comments on ‘flinchers’ – maybe I should back-off with the flash!
I have been waiting for the past few months to post on a development of Helicon where one can program it to vary focus by tiny amounts within a set range. I think that this is going to be great for field shots where, with a camera capable of high ISO shots one could then use wider apertures and faster shutter speeds plus natural light…a sequence would then depend on the speed with which the camera mechanics recycle. I have tried it by using the Mac with parallels since it is still only available for PC…the Mac version is promised.
Again, Matt lovely shots – someone who is not a naturalist simply could not do those: you convey the exquisite nature of the creatures and there has to be empathy.
best
Paul
thanks Paul.
I do agree about the 20 or 50 frame images, they are almost all of dead insects, they simply have to be. I rarely go beyond 2 or 3 frames. I’ll have to look out for the dew-covered images where the droplets are a bit too uniform.
Incidentally, I did once have someone insinuate that I’d used a spray on one of my images precisely because only the insect was covered in droplets and not the perch. You can’t win can you. One of the unfortunate side effects of digital photography is that viewers of images have become increasingly distrustful, perhaps with good reason (though not on that occasion!).
best wishes
Matt
Hi Matt,
You can’t win, as you say. A few years ago I mounted an exhibition of some of my work locally to help some friends who were putting together a flower festival. Lois overheard four people talking and one said “he is very good with photoshop’ referring to one of those rain droplet pics like the one on this post. She took great delight in explaining I used the droplet as a lens…they were fascinated, turned out he was an artist, a sculptor who make fantastic classical statues (Centaurs the god Pan…) out of old car and motor bike parts. We became good friends!
I managed a sequence of five with the crab spider but, as you say its often less.
And, of course, if there was a sudden temperature drop in a humid atmosphere one would get uniform droplets… or maybe go out on a night when ghosts or other supernatural manifestations be abroad…
The one useful thing about an education in physics is that it does leave one with an ability to explain (and also bulls**t about) natural phenomenon!!
Paul