The Ultimate "Bug Hunter"

I frequently go into my gardens "bug hunting" with my camera. I have a lot of fun and have loved learning about the various bugs I get photos of. I have a friend that helps me out if I get stuck. Because of her identification help over the last several years, that need for identification help happens less and less often. She still looks at almost all, and comments on many, of my garden photos that I post on a private platform.

Today, I came across a yellow garden spider. It's been a couple years since I've had a good one for photographs. Spiders are the ultimate bug hunter. Patient like the orb weavers, or stalking like the jumping spiders, I really like them and work to get my grandkids to like them instead of fear them. After showing the grandkids the actual spider and web, I also brought them to the computer monitor so they could see the spider up close. I hope over time, they'll learn to not fear bugs (except for mosquitoes, they suck).

Here are a couple photos of the Yellow Garden Spider, and two photos of "bugs" it may have been hoping to catch.



Yellow Garden Spider

Yellow Garden Spider

Wasp - Cicada Killer?

Skipper

Islands in the Sky

A photo I especially liked from the DLSR part of my The Sand Project



Islands in the Sky

Butterflies Are Free to Fly

Butterflies are one of my favorite bug "subjects". A few days back I was trying to get good photos of a Black Swallowtail, and especially trying to get it with a Yellow Swallowtail that it was sometimes hanging out with. I managed a couple decent shots of the Yellow, and none worth showing here of the Black. For one of the photos I tried to take of the two together, I was a hair too slow on the shutter, and the Yellow was flying away.



Taking a Sip

Profile, Environmental Portrait of a Butterfly at Work

And Off It Goes

The Sand Project, Part 2 - DSLR

The second half of The Sand Project
I spent a week at the beach recently and decided to do a "project" that would be naturally limited.
Images of the beach sand.

The project was limited by:
Time, I was only at the beach a week
Tide times, so the sun would be low enough to get decent shadows and contrast
People/crowds, I didn't want contend with too many people or footprints in my photos

I took two walks with my iPhone, and two walks with my "real" camera (A Canon EOS 6D Mk1 for those who might care).

Here are a half-dozen of the "real" camera images.


A Walk on the Beach

The Rapids

Sunrise

Calm

The Wilds

The Keys