INTRODUCTION TO INSECTS GALLERY

Enter the world of a Lilliputian. This is what it’s like photographing insects. You change your everyday frame of reference to the miniscule, often drawn by small movements. I noticed the Longhorned Beetle, for example, falling from the sky like a leaf only I could tell it was heavier and its movements were less arbitrary than a real leaf’s. Then I noticed its unusual colors. Butterflies often move into our lives and are out as fast as they arrived. So capturing one while it rests always feels like an accomplishment, never mind the children in Laos who take them for granted as play things. Of course their wings are even more brilliant close up, and more fragile like tiny mosaics made of colored dusty hairs. I love the way the light blue of the top of the body turns to a green before transitioning to a yellow-white on the Green Jay Butterfly, the eye patterns on the wings of the Common Buckeye, the Peacock Pansy and the Luna Moth. Dragonflies and damselflies are the raptors of the insect world yet faster and agile. They are often colorful and their eyes are keen, yet their fast-moving wings are fragile, often clear windowpanes framed like miniature stained glass windows. We can see them looking at us as we spy them. I like to photograph other insects just because they are so varied in shape and color. Notice the eyes of the spider and mantis from Northern Laos.