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Mosquitoes are responsible for a lot of deaths and diseases worldwide. Even if they don’t kill you, they can keep you awake all night and leave you pretty uncomfortable. We have tiger mosquitoes where I live, they are so big you can actually see the stripes.
So why would you want to film their larva, we ask? Well, Jens from Another Perspective has shed quite literally new light on these creatures. And I’m both fascinated and revulsed.
I’ve always been fascinated by carnivorous plants. At a young age, I begged my mum for a Venus fly trap, eagerly awaiting the moment when I could watch as the plant trapped an unwitting insect in its jaws, slowly ingesting its prey. Sadly, I was not green-fingered enough to keep the plant alive long enough to watch this happen.
Luckily, Jens from Another Perspective does have some talent with plants, and he shot this mesmerizing time-lapse over a period of 30 days (I know! He actually kept the plant alive for a month!).
The flickering of a swarm of fireflies is one of the most magical things I’ve seen in my life. It always impresses me no matter how many times I see it. I started appreciating it even more lately, as it’s not lo longer a common sight in Serbia.
The biggest swarm of fireflies I’ve ever seen contained around 150 or 200 beetles. So, when I saw this Sriram Murali’s video, it made my jaw drop. He captured billions of these impressive creatures flickering through the night and turned their light show into a beautiful short film.
There are macro images, and then there are extreme macro images. Photographer Marco Retana from Costa Rica specialises in macro images of insects that are indeed pretty extreme in the close-up department.
Retana manages to capture such incredible detail, particularly in the eyes of his subjects that DIYP had to catch up with him and find out how he shoots these images.
The photographer who won the 2021 Buglife Bug Photographer of the Year Award has been vilified on social media for his apparently unethical methods to keep the insects from moving while he photographs them.
I follow quite a few YouTube channels. Some of them are purely for the visually stunning creations they post. Others are for the information they provide. Occasionally, though, you come across a channel that does both. That’s Ant Lab, the channel of Dr Adrian Smith at the Evolutionary Biology & Behavior Research Lab.
Dr Smith’s content focuses primarily on bugs, and we’ve featured him here on DIYP before. A few times, actually. His videos are as fascinating as they are beautiful and this one of various insects preparing for flight and taking off at 6,000fps is no exception.
I see a lot of macro and timelapse scroll by my screen and when the two come together, they can produce something that’s just wonderful. When you add bugs into the mix as well, you get something that’s a little bit extra special, like this beautiful short film from Thomas Blanchard.
Despite describing this as an “experimental film”, Thomas combines both of these techniques masterfully to make this incredible creation. It took four months worth of patience to make and is comprised of 8K video of insects on the RED Helium 8K and 8K timelapse of carnivorous plants on the Canon EOS 5DS R DSLR.
Dr. Adrian Smith of Ant Lab has shown us quite a few times how beautiful, unusual, and complex the world of insects is. His latest video is not only wonderful to watch, but it’s also the most calming thing you’ll see today. Well, unless you suffer from Lepidopterophobia.
Dr. Smith filmed seven gorgeous, colorful moths taking off in slow motion. Setting his camera to 6,000 fps, he has captured the movements in these creatures that we’re hardly aware of.
When looking from afar, all bees look the same. But just like they’re complex and intelligent creatures, they also look different from each other. Photographer and drone operator Josh Forwood wanted to show these differences, so he took a series of macro bee portraits. His photos let us meet bees up close (and I mean, really close) and see how different their little faces really are.
I’m not too afraid of bugs, but I know I couldn’t stay calm if they swarmed all over me while I was shooting. Heck, I couldn’t even stay calm while watching Thomas Peschak do it! In this video, the NatGeo photographer is calmly taking photos while huge armored katydids run all over his hand.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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