My love for shooting macro has grown exponentially in the past several months, and it has given me a creative outlet aside from the work-for-hire projects that I have. This past Sunday, after putting the baby down for a nap, I went outside with my kids and we were on a mission to find a ladybug. But then, we saw that the honey bees were working their little hind-ends off gathering pollen (very intriguing science lesson if you want to take your kids out to explore) to take back to their hives.
But, woah, those little suckers move so fast and they spend very little time being still and/or in one spot. I shot lots and lots of images of them on our two camelia bushes, as well as on the dandelions growing in the yard. My kids were chasing around bees for the sake of mommy to capture a really awesome image of them! I can’t tell you how many times I had to tell them to back away or get stung, and a couple of them have already had that happen in their little lifetimes.
We spent probably close to two hours shooting and chasing and looking for other bugs – we finally found a few ladybugs here and there, and they are quite neat to watch through the lens. My oldest son, who has a growing love for shooting pictures, even took a few frames of a ladybug – of course, it’s a tough lens to maneuver when you’re just using it for the first time, so he got a little frustrated with getting it to focus.
The following are a few of the images I shot from our little afternoon of nature. I’m planning a few shoots with different things for the sake of getting close-up shots of them and I’ll be sure to share them here and on my Facebook page.
