Cicada.jpg

What an interesting project. Do keep us updated here.

Cicadas....the voice of summer in the southern states. Nice shot.

That's a cool project Doug

Wow! Good luck on your project and I look forward to seeing more!

Tom Kershaw said:

What an interesting project. Do keep us updated here.

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It IS interesting. Everything about it is interesting. The insect collection is housed in the old museum building that is now closed to the public. So every so often I get to go there on a Friday, and hang out with the very knowledgeable, impressive Colleen Evans, who is the entomologist for the museum. We are the only two people in the building. She tells me this is the largest cicada collection in the world, and the fourth largest insect collection in the country. Of course, there are lots of other critters besides insects, there are "bugs." Colleen tells me she has a pet tarantula, which might make an interesting portrait one day, who knows? The insects are in cases that are standing upright like books on the shelf, and the shelves go on and on and on. And I'll say to her, Colleen, do you have any weevils? And she stands up from putting pins through specimens, scans around the isles, then says, let's go see. And she walks through all these shelves with all these boxes, and stops and reaches out, and the labels on them mean not a lot to me, but out comes a case of weevils. Terrific fun.

Acere said:

That's a cool project Doug

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I will keep you posted. I've got quite a few photographs that will probably be more than I will print, although I'd love to go back and shoot some more. I did accidentally need some batteries there, so maybe I can squeeze in another session. I've been doing this for about a year. The entomologist is not always available. If you read above, you'll get an idea how this all works. The conference are the next huge process that I have to engage. I've done some color, separations and tests, not pleased with the results yet. I can be a little bit of a perfectionist about these things.

Daniela said:

Wow! Good luck on your project and I look forward to seeing more!

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Thank you Daniella. Getting set up for this was interesting. Way back in the 1970s and 80s, I worked for an aerospace company doing a lot of technical photography, and a lot of it using macro techniques. So I grabbed an old copy stand that I had like laying around, blew the dust off my late 80s vintage Nikor macro lens, bought some extension tubes, then adapted that lens to my Sony a7ii. After the first session I also picked up a remote RF shutter release. The old copy stand is not the most secure, the least little thing caused vibration. I've since replaced it.