I have been taking photographs since my Dad gave me a camera when I was seven years old. I've photographed everything from fireflies and butterflies to the Grand Canyon, from the ancient Big Trees of Sequoia National Park and Old Faithful to the tiniest of mites under a microscope. My work has been featured in many publications including World Book Encyclopedia (See "Alabama" photo of the atrium by TAL LYNCH). Plus if you Google "Terry Lynch Firefly" you will probably have no problem finding my work all over the Internet, given the study and photography of fireflies is one of my passions!
You can see many examples of my work in The Naturalist Gallery at
http://www.cafepress.com/bytelandart/531468
See also The Firefly Gallery which features firefly photographs and designs at
http://www.cafepress.com/bytelandart/648757
I've also have a number of flower photographs featured upon gift and apparel at
http://www.cafepress.com/bytelandart/617756
Given my love of nature and photography, I wanted to make a few suggestions to help others who share this interest. Perhaps you may benefit from these methods and techniques which I have found helpful in taking my own photographs of insects, spiders and other small animals and flowers.
Try using a flash, even when you zoom in on small subjects such as insects and spiders. Also, often spiders are more active at night and you can use a small flashlight to illuminate the spider, then focus upon it and get a great photograph with a flash. Sometimes this will make a shadow on walls or the background if it is not far away, but the shadow can add interest, or if shot at an angle you can avoid the shadow.
Because many spiders are nocturnal, they are active at night and you can get photos of the capturing or feeding upon prey insects. I especially would like to see more photographs of spider behavior such as feeding, mating, egg case building, etc. Some spider behaviors are very difficult to capture in the wild, such as mating, so these would be very good topics to try to record.
Also, did you know that even though many spiders are active at night, some, like orb web weavers, will remain in the centers of their web even when artificial light is turned on. I recently photographed an orb weaver on repeated evenings and was even able to set up a tripod and illuminate the spider with a flood lamp, without startling the spider. The spider was, however, very sensitive to sounds and would get very tense when my dog barked! So you may want to try using various techniques to try to illuminate some of your spider subjects. In the day time you can also use flash which will often result in much more dramatic and clear photographs of insects and spiders, especially when they are in the shade.
You can use the flash mounted in your camera or can use extended flash. Also you can use reflectors to add light to a shaded area. A large piece of white foam core board makes a nice reflectors. Also you can wrap aluminum foil around a piece of foam core (or reflective Mylar) to make a nice reflector. Of course having an assistant to help with the reflector helps; or you can hold these in place by attaching them to handles or very stiff wire which would well for small, light weight reflectors. I've found this works well to help illuminate small flowers or insects that may be in shady areas as does using a flash even on bright sunny days when parts of a flower or insect would otherwise not be brightly illuminated, given they often position themselves to be out of direct sunlight to avoid over heating. This is especially true with insects and spiders that are at rest.
You can also use foam core boards to provide a background. Sometimes you may not want the existing background to be in your photographs. I sometimes use black, white or colored foam core for a background. You can get black foam core at art supply shops or framing shops or make your own by using flat spray paints. I also use felt covered foam core to provide soft backdrops. This is often very helpful for flowers.
There may be situations where you can work easier indoors, as if it is too windy, rainy, etc. For example, you might want to photographs aphids on a rose. You could take the entire stem of the plant with aphids indoors, set up a tripod, use a black, white or colored foam core background, with flood lamps, and shoot a whole sets of photographs under very controlled lighting conditions. As the aphids are just feeding upon the rose stem, you really haven't done anything to change their behavior much, but working under controlled studio conditions can often give you the power to get some fantastic shots that are much more difficult to do outdoors, especially when the wind is blowing causing the subject to move all around. I used this method to shoot the inflorescence of dandelion blossoms this spring. You can see much of my work in The Naturalist Gallery at http://www.cafepress.com/bytelandart/531468
Currently I am trying to stimulate an interest in nature study and photography and hosting a number of on-line Photo Fests. The goal is to challenge everyone to make photographs of small animals and present the best work people submit. Please see these sites:
SlugFest at http://www.byteland.org/slugfest/index.html
SpiderFest at http://www.byteland.org/spiderfest/index.html
ButterflyFest at http://www.byteland.org/butterflyfest/index.html
MacroPhotoFest at http://www.byteland.org/macrophotofest/index.html
Complete information and an entry form is posted at http://www.byteland.org/photofest/index.html Photos, which may be edited, along with completed entry form, may be sent as attached files to TerryLynch@aol.com.
When you send files, please put YOUR NAME on the files as JohnDoe_spider_imageNumber.jpg or JohnDoe_beetle_imageNumber.jpg or JohnDoe_butterfly_imageNumber.jpg or something like that. This is because I have hundreds of thousands of photographs of my own plus hundreds of thousands of photographs in various stock photo collections. So I have to rename the files anyway if they do not have your name on them and it makes it easier to refer to the file you send if it has your name on it to begin with; so best that you do the file naming. Also by having your name as part of the file name, this insures that your name as photographer remain associated with the file when it is transferred.
When I publish photos on-line, I will add your photo credits in the description and often add a copyright notice as a water mark on the image itself. This is for YOUR OWN protection. I like to add the copyright notices myself as often an image may be cropped or a certain font style works better than another. However, some photographers who send me work put their own copyright water marks in the lower right or left corner. This only presents a problem if the photos need to be cropped, resized, enhances or otherwise edited as I have to add a new copyright notice anyway. Also, I sometimes change file size when posting on-line, as smaller file sizes load faster, and it is best to add the water mark after changing file size, not before, so that it reads clearly; however, I need high resolution original photographs so that pixels don't show up if a work is enlarged or printed.
Some photographers do not like publishers to retouch or edit their work; however, photographers may benefit by having work edited that it is presented and exhibited to reflect best upon the photographer. In this regard I only accept photographs which may be edited, as it is often necessary to edit images with respect to how they are presented or used. Therefore I request that only copies of photographs be sent to me with the understanding they may be edited for usage. Since I am a master artist and photographer myself, I often retouch work to remove such imperfections as dust marks, scratches, blemishes, scars, rips, tears (as tears in the wing of a butterfly), etc. and have even restored many images of antique prints, art and photographs. Whereas it may take only a fraction of a second to photograph a butterfly, it takes a much longer time to retouch a photographs to repair any imperfections or remove any nuisances or blemishes. Actually this is something more and more photographers are learning how to do before they send out their own work, given the power of image processing software. What use to take much longer to do in the darkroom or via airbrush, can now be done using PhotoShop or similar software. So I recommend that all photographers get good image processing software and learn how to use it, especially if you are sending out work which you want published. If you think about it, often a piece of dust or a glare of light distorts an image, obscures and falsifies the image, such that when these are removed and/or corrected you actually get a more honest and genuine representation of the subject you are photographing. A good example of this is advertising and promotional type photography of models. Usually the models undergo makeup even prior to photographing; then photographs will be airbrushed or retouched to remove blemishes, glares, or other imperfections. With PhotoShop or other image processing software all photographers now have the power to edit their own photographs in the same way the big advertising agencies have been doing for years. So I do recommend that photographers use image processing software. Of course sometimes you will get perfect photographs with the snap of the shutter. But sometimes a photographs can be improved by retouching or enhancing the photographs that when you send out photographs which have been processed to perfect your work, you will then be able to get more work published.
There are many good image processing programs on the market. Photo Suite is another good program. I think Kodak even has a free image processing program as does Seattle Film Works.
Also, many photographer may benefit from using services such as CafePress. You can open a free account by clicking the link below.
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/storeref.aspx?refby=48378
CafePress now has framed prints which make a great way to present work for marketing. Also they provide numerous other gifts and apparel that work may be made available to a wider audience. Also please note that you can make a commission off all work which is published in the Byteland Art Gallery at http://www.cafepress.com/bytelandart simply by joining CafePress and their affiliate program; then if you have a web site or make a refer using their affiliate program, you will receive a commission. Hence all you have to do to profit from any of my work is make a web site and refer shoppers. There are even programs that will build such referral web sites for you (they may take a percentage as 1 in 4 or more hits). Still, this represents a way photographers may supplement their income. See the user forums on CafePress for more information about third party tools and utilities.
I hope this information will help everyone to take better photographs. Remember, when you go into the great outdoors, "take only photographs; leave only footprints." This is especially true when visiting our state and national parks which serve as a refuge for many animals and plants that can be found no where else.