A mix of images

  Grabbing up a camera and making a couple of images can sometimes be such a pain. Sometimes you are just too busy. Sometimes it's just that you lack inspiration. And then it could be laziness. Or how about a nice even combination of all three? However, I managed to make a few images during the last couple of weeks. Tried a flash bender, photographed landscapes, portraits, and even a couple of bugs... and then I had a gig to shoot a couple apartments (and I was very exited about it), but it failed due to a misunderstanding. So no photos of that. But I'll share what I have...

 

      

Zinnia getting visitors

  One of my favorite flowers is Zinnia. Not only that it is interesting looking and beautiful, but it's a tempting flower for different pollinators. For a couple of days I've been trying to photograph a couple of those nectar hungry invertebrates. For the purpose I chose just one flower, the tallest one...

High noon and both the flower and the background are nicely lit 

A hummingbird hawk-moth visiting the flower. The background  is in the shadow of a nearby building

  Some kind of a hover fly spotted the flower and came for a sip

Not all of the insects are of flying kind. A couple of shield bugs enjoying the fall sun

   Last but not least a small white butterfly taking advantage of the juice of the zinnia flower.

An intimate portrait

  Fire bugs are pretty common insects, you can see them here and there and often many at the same time. It's not uncommon to see these invertebrates to be fastened to each other from their butts. That means that a male have found a female and they are breeding and soon there is more of them, actually a lots of them. However, I like these interesting small bugs. They are brightly colored and a nice subject for photos.

Visitor in the yard

  Dragonflies aren't the most frequent visitors in our yard, but maybe once or twice in a summer they'll make an exception. This yellow fellow landed on a dry branch on one of the apple trees. I saw it from the window, jumped up from my chair, picked up my camera and tripod and rushed out. I was pretty sure he'd be gone, but no, there he was still on the same twig enjoying the sun. First I tried to approach him from the other side, just to shoot him with a nice rim light, back lit, but he was too faraway. A new approach from the other side, with quite a bit of branches and apples in my way. Carefully I managed to place my tripod and camera between the branches and make a few frames, but still I felt he's too faraway. Nowadays I usually don't shoot macros without my tripod. But what can you do when the tripod becomes more than an obstacle? You'll shoot free hand and that's just what I did. Luckily I ended up with at least one decently sharp image.

    

Bush and a bush cricket

  A fig tree in the yard can be full of surprises and photo opportunities and of course figs too. Today I found two bush crickets on the same branch. Sad to say I was two slow to shoot, the other one moved away before I managed to make a frame of the two on the same leaf. Here's one shot made with a 150 mm macro lens, wide open f4,5, @ ISO 800 (bad light)...

   

Damselflies

  Had to get my feet wet literally for these images, but I think it was worth it.