10/365: Iron Bee

Snapped this right before he stung me in the eyeball. Just kidding. My advice for would-be insect photographers...

Use a dead insect. I found this unfortunate (yet well-preserved) fellow in my shed last year, and brought him inside in hopes to take his post-mortem portrait. Finally got a chance to do that. I think he is quite regal, for a dried-up husk anyway.

For those of you interested in how I lit the shot: one speedlight in homemade grid behind and above the bee. One speedlight in Orbis ringflash. One speedlight on wooden background in dome duffuser with full CTO. All manual, all fired with PWs. Cloned out the needle he was perched on in Photoshop, and fixed his sorry-looking broken antennae. You can see the setup here, that's the little bee right in the center...

And here's one more from the session that I liked a lot, though this one has been mirrored in post, for symmetry's sake. In this shot, only the gridded speedlight behind the bee is firing, for a nice dramatic effect.

Thanks for stopping by!

- LLG