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My process for creating insect portraits with macro photography

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Each print that I create is a composite of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of individual photos digitally stitched together. Using a method of macro photography called “photo stacking” it’s possible to create images with an incredible amount of detail, even when printed at a very large scale.

To show you the amount of work involved—often reaching 10 to 20 hours per image or more—I’ll walk you through my process using a giant stag beetle (Cyclommattus metallifer finae) from Indonesia. It is time-intensive and tedious, but worth it. Let’s get to it.

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2020 Bug Photographer of the Year winners will take your fear of bugs away

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Most people I know are afraid of bugs or disgusted by them. However, insects are a magnificent subject for macro photography, and they can look gorgeous, elegant, even comical. This year’s Luminar Bug Photographer of the Year winners show all sides of insects that could make you stop fearing them. After all, even the contest winner overcame his fear of insects through photography!

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Watch these weird insects as they take off in super slow-motion

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Super slow-motion can show us a lot of things that we’ve never seen before. Dr. Adrian Smith of Ant Lab wanted to show us how some unusual insects take flight, so he filmed them at 3,200 fps. It’s amazing to reveal what techniques they use to take off, but it’s also interesting to see how much they differ.

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Winners of 2020 International Garden Photographer of the Year show how much beauty there is in your own backyard

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The coronavirus has stopped us in our tracks and prevented us from traveling, exploring, and taking photos at new places. But hey, this is our chance to rediscover our own city, neighborhood, even our own backyard. International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) 2020 winners will inspire you to get out and find all the hidden beauty of your own backyard.

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Watch a photographer’s Blackmagic Pocket 4K become home to a colony of ants

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Some of us have had ants in the kitchen, or maybe we had to deal with these little creatures while camping. But have you ever had your camera swarmed by ants? Dakota McLearn was unpleasantly surprised recently when he saw that his Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K had become home to a colony of ants. He shared his experience in a video and it’s as fascinating as it is scary.

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This mesmerizing super slow motion video shows how ants inject venom into their prey

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If you spend time in nature, I bet you have been stung by ants more than once. And have you ever wondered how do these little critters inject their venom under our skin? Thanks to scientist Adrian Smith, you can now see it from up close. He has filmed the world’s first close-up, super slow motion video of how ants’ stingers work. And while it teaches you something new, it’s also very captivating to watch.

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How to photograph bugs in the field that look like they were shot in a studio

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If you’re a bit of a macro addict, photographing bugs while out and about can be great fun. There’s so many out there to see, and they come in some fantastic shapes, sizes and colours. Not everybody wants to photograph them sitting on a leaf or crawling across the ground, though. Sometimes you want to have a cleaner look that features just the subject.

In a studio, this is quite easy to do, but how can you get a studio type of look while out in the middle of nowhere? Well, here’s a video from photographer Phil Torres at The Jungle Diaries to show us. It’s easy to do, and if you already have a macro lens, it only requires a couple of inexpensive extra bits.

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Photographing a mosquito hatching from its pupa

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I suppose like most photographers I have a “photographic bucket-list”, and documenting the life-cycle of the much maligned Mosquito has always been high on that list. Like many of my projects this turned out to be quite the undertaking filled with many challenging and unique problems.

Mosquitoes start off as eggs which hatch into larvae. The larvae, also called wrigglers feed on algae and micro-organisms in the water. They spend much of their time at the water’s surface sucking oxygen through breathing tubes attached at their tail. After about a week they turn into pupae.

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How a personal project became an exhibition of the most beautifully photographed and detailed bugs you ever saw

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As a commercial portrait photographer specialising in sports, this project is a little different to the regular subjects that Levon Biss is used to shooting, but keen to make a personal project that he could pursue in his spare time which didn’t take up much space, insects became the perfect answer and that project became Microsculpture.

Originally starting the project at home using specimens his son had caught in the garden, Levon soon perfected his technique and began to produce some amazing results, that are about to be exhibited at the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History.

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